


Across The Northern Skies

by henrywinters



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - War, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-18 11:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15484368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henrywinters/pseuds/henrywinters
Summary: Italy, 1917: Jung Taekwoon, a soldier of the Italian infantry, visits the town of Napoli. There he finds a love to last a lifetime. But what is a lifetime when the war rages loudly in the north, when the promise of dispatch lingers like an illness so close it is tangible.Fueled by the promise of a future unknown, Taekwoon embarks on a journey through the throes of passion and loss, through a world on fire, where love still blooms even in winter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> why does it feel like i haven't posted in so long ? i've missed being here!
> 
> i come bearing gifts of war and romance. i haven't written something this long in a while (note this is "book one" of two, so expect another lengthy piece in due time) and it feels really nice to create again. there are no warnings for this part of the fic, it's all mushy and gooey and i hope you all enjoy it ♡

 

 

_Sweet dreams though the guns are booming._

_— E. M. Remarque_

 

 

 

 **book one**.

 **I**.

In the summer of nineteen-seventeen the sky was sun bleached and very white so that it hurt the eyes when one gazed upon the clouds and all the sprouting greens of the valleys. Fruit trees bloomed sweetly and the aroma came fresh as a wind blown over the fields, but the scent of the fruit mingled with the scent of death so the valleys were ripe with a bitterness that brought sickness to ones head. Troops fought in the mountains and returned half as many as they had been before. They returned with a light retracting from their once cool eyes and appeared black with dirt and very thin; it was a summer of victories and many were decorated for their triumphs.

 

Word came from the front that the war would end, but for the troops in the mountains it seemed unlikely. Like a virus, hope would spread, but each day there was more fighting and more victories until there was no one left to fight. Then the summer came to an end and the autumn opened up thick with rain that did not stop for days. It flooded the towns and made travel very difficult as the valleys filled with water so they posed as inlets, impassible as the great sea.

 

The war did not end that year, but for some it came to a brief halt. The surviving troops were sent back through Milano. Some passed through to Roma and Napoli and others toward the countryside where the meadows spread wide as oceans, where the fighting had not yet started so that it was like being in a world where war did not exist. This would not last for ever, but like redemption it would be enough until the fighting began again.

 

 **II**.

On 15 October Jung Taekwoon came through the city of Roma, dust covered and very tired, but it was not until 18 October that he stopped in the city of Napoli by the sea and came to a villa that housed troops from the front. It was then he was able to amble down tenebrous corridors of that unlit sanctuary to remove his fatigues.

 

“There you are!” came the jovial familiarity of a voice Taekwoon knew well. He could not keep from smiling. “Where have you been?”

 

“Jaehwan,” said Taekwoon. They embraced briefly. “In Milano.”

 

“And what was in Milano that took you so long?”

 

“Nothing. Then I was in Roma.”

 

“And what was in Roma that kept you?”

 

“Nothing,” Taekwoon smiled. He clapped a hand to Jaehwan's shoulder. “Nothing important.”

 

“Oh, was it a woman? Was she very beautiful?”

 

“Not a woman.”

 

“A man, then. Tell me everything. Did you fall in love?”

 

“Not a man either.”

 

“Then, truly,” Jaehwan inquired, “nothing?”

 

“I am not you,” Taekwoon said without edge. “I am not stopped by every beautiful person I pass by.”

 

With barking laughter that echoed greatly, Jaehwan pounded a fist to Taekwoon's chest. “You've just returned and already you want to fight! Haven't you had enough fighting with the war?”

 

It was lovely to see Jaehwan again. Taekwoon felt the pangs of emotion eclipse him and he feared he would lose himself to the swelling within his chest. It was not often that soldiers found one another more than once after being to the front.

 

“You've missed me,” Jaehwan taunted at once.

 

“I need to shower.”

 

“Then, go, shower. And to-night we'll go out.” He grabbed Taekwoon by the shoulders and pulled him close so that the bridge of his nose pressed into the flesh of Taekwoon's cheek. “We will go for a drink and have a nice time like we did in Firenze before the summer. Do you remember?”

 

“I remember.”

 

“You don't want to go?”

 

Taekwoon rest his hand on the small of Jaehwan's back and eased him away. “Did we come to Napoli to drink? Is that why we're here?”

 

“We are here for rest! And, yes, a drink too.” Laughter danced in and out of those unperturbed, sparkling eyes that Taekwoon could not deny. He wanted a drink. He wanted company. So he said he would go only after they had ate, because he had not eaten a decent meal since before Roma and did not want to forget the night.

 

“We will not forget anything to-night, you have my word.”

 

Taekwoon left for the shower and once clean, was able to feel like a man again. He came down to where the beds were laid out and claimed a cot. Then came out of the villa to stand in the courtyard where many troops came to smoke. He lighted a cigarette and waited for Jaehwan. It was not long before he came.

 

“I forgot how handsome you are when you're not so dirty,” Jaehwan said.

 

They walked like brothers in matching uniform to a small shop at the end of the cobbled road. Here they ordered the dinner special of bruschetta and carbonara with a deep red wine that was very sweet and went down smoothly and settled in ones belly like something kind.

 

As they ate, they talked not of the war but of the city they found themselves in. Jaehwan had never seen the sea. He was humbled by it and admitted so.

 

“I wanted to cry the first time I saw it. And the mountains! They're steep and green and the valleys open up like they're alive.”

 

“Has this country made you a romantic?”

 

“Is it possible to come somewhere like here and not return home in love with it?”

 

“You've forgotten the fighting,” Taekwoon said.

 

“ _Si_. A little. I think of it sometimes when sleep won't come, but I try to not think of it often and I suppose, maybe, I've forgotten a lot of it because of this.”

 

If thought about long enough Taekwoon could remember the country he had come to before the war had started and how he had come for good art and good company and had found much of both.

 

“It's still beautiful,” Taekwoon said. “But when I think of the mountains, I think of the fighting.”

 

“Don't think of these things to-night. It won't do you any good to think of these things to-night. For once, we are not here to fight.”

 

“How long have you been in Napoli?”

 

“Two weeks. Maybe a little longer. I was worried you would not come. I thought. . .do you want to know what I thought?”

 

“I know what you thought,” Taekwoon said. “I thought the same.”

 

Beneath the table the pressure of Jaehwan's foot rested atop Taekwoon's own. It was a brief touch. One that would go unnoticed by those around them, but provided what comfort was necessary. Taekwoon laughed softly.

 

“You're still sentimental,” he said.

 

“Does war change that in a man?”

 

“Sometimes.”

 

When they had finished their meal and the wine, they ordered another bottle and then finished that too. By the time they left the restaurant Taekwoon was very warm and tired and felt very happy to be somewhere he did not have to be wary of others.

 

He said to Jaehwan, “I don't think I can drink any more to-night.”

 

“Then don't drink. We'll talk instead and spend time together. There is a place I've been meaning to go to that I've heard a lot about. It isn't quite a cafe because they sing there too.”

 

“Is there dancing?”

 

“I can't say. But I don't think so, no. Can you imagine these men dancing anywhere?” He laughed and swung an arm around Taekwoon's shoulders.

 

If it had not been for the excited way Jaehwan spoke, Taekwoon may have gone back to the villa. But to see his friend enjoy life was not a time to be passed up. So they followed the road away from the shops and the restaurants and the cafes then came to a place beyond the town apartments where the streets lit up alive with tawny light. The air smelled of good wine and beer. It was the smell of a youth Taekwoon had almost forgotten and to stand there, amidst the alpenglow of sunset, admiring the drunkards as they latched onto another as if their lives so dearly depended on the man by his side, Taekwoon felt very happy.

 

“You might find a woman here,” Jaehwan teased lightly.

 

“I'm not interested in a woman.”

 

“I know this. But if you were.”

 

The cafe was dark and warm but felt very strange beneath Taekwoon's feet as if he walked on something soiled. Drunken soldiers chatted loudly like gulls circling the seas, calling out to the many bright-eyed women in matching red skirts. One did not have to look to see why this was a place greatly talked about. The music was sultry as a summer day and posed as a backdrop to a world unremembered by men of war. The beating of drums replaced the death call of the airplanes and of bombers that circled the mountains. It gave a new meaning, however fleeting, to life.

 

They were not offered a table and so took one of the few empty ones around the cafe. Then they ordered Scotch and a bowl of limes that Jaehwan squeezed into the drinks.

 

“Perhaps _you_ will find a woman,” Taekwoon said, not at all joking.

 

“Maybe I will be too tired for that to-night.”

 

“That would be a first.”

 

They shared a modest laugh as the music changed tempo and became something lively, lovely, like the music one hears in the great Hollywood pictures and Taekwoon was momentarily blindsided by the excitement that rushed into him.

 

“Oh,” Jaehwan said with a great stretch of his arms. “I have done nothing these days, but I feel tired, like I have been running marathons throughout this town. But I have hardly left the villa. Do you know what I'm saying?”

 

Taekwoon nodded. He could tell by the set of his eyes that Jaehwan was very tired. It was a tiredness seen around the room; possibly one shared by each man of the world. It was a tiredness Taekwoon understood well.

 

“For the rest of the time we are here, you ought to rest.”

 

“I have been resting all this time! Waiting for you. I rested this morning until after noon and felt like death once I finally crawled out of bed.” Jaehwan drank his Scotch quickly. “It's worse to lie around.”

 

A sudden loneliness seized Taekwoon, brought on by the loud camaraderie around them. He felt an impulse to speak out and find friends among them. He longed for a companionship that would bring him farther from the front and remind him that this was not all—not all at all. But it was unlike him to do such a thing. He understood at once he was drunk and getting drunker.

 

Taekwoon took Jaehwan's shoulder and said, “I need something to eat.”

 

“Eat again? You drank too fast.”

 

“Is it obvious?”

 

“Your cheeks are very rosy,” he pestered. “Even drunk you are a handsome man! You ought to find a woman anyway just for the hell of it.”

 

“I've told you,” Taekwoon said and could hear the whine in his own throat. “I do not want a woman.” He was tired. He was becoming a bore.

 

“If I leave, will you stay here alone?” he asked.

 

“I will be fine on my own if that's what you mean,” Jaehwan said, grinning. “Why don't you have a cigarette first? Clear your head and maybe you will be all right then.”

 

“Yes, all right.”

 

There was an ashtray on the table that Taekwoon quickly disregarded. He needed the cool air of the city to clear the alcohol that had settled over him and so stood outside where it was not yet cold, but where the wind was very cool against his heated face.

 

He smoked twice and felt fine. A soldier by the entrance asked for a cigarette and then his name and when Taekwoon offered it, the soldier smiled.

 

“You were there in Gorizia. I thought you looked familiar and now I know.”

 

Taekwoon could not place the man's face to a name, but remembered him vaguely as he remembered all those he fought beside. To make up for his failed memory, he took the soldier's hand and told him to come have a drink inside.

 

“Another time,” he said. “I have somewhere to be. But, yes, another time.”

 

Taekwoon did not let his relief show as the man left. And alone again, he lighted another cigarette and smoked it slowly.

 

When he returned inside the air was damp with perspiration. The music had stopped and the stage stood empty and dark, but the men were still rowdy and no longer having to compete with the loudness of the band, they became animated.

 

Jaehwan was at the table with a woman leaning very near his face. She was a cigarette girl offering him an unfamiliar American brand.

 

She spoke English until realizing neither man understood her. Then she switched to Italian and said happily, “They are very mellow! If you like cigars, you will like these.”

 

Jaehwan paid for the cigarettes which in return paid for a short amount of the girl's time. She stayed beside him and lowered herself into his lap, asking for stories of the war. She wanted to know how a foreigner had gotten into the Italian army.

 

She pointed to Taekwoon. “ _e tu_? You are a foreigner too?”

 

“ _Si_.”

 

“Why did you join the army?”

 

“I was in Italy,” Taekwoon said. “I spoke Italian. I thought, why not?”

 

“You are brave to join an army that is not yours. That is admirable.”

 

Taekwoon accepted her compliments but did not agree with her. He had not joined to be noble, but because he had not wanted to be deported back to Korea. They cannot deport an active soldier and both he and Jaehwan understood this.

 

“You are brave too!” Jaehwan told her. “You come here every night and have to deal with these animals. What a brave girl.”

 

She looked at Jaehwan with eyes that shined and it was then Taekwoon realized she was beautiful. Out of respect he left the table and went to the counter where he ordered a whiskey and sipped it slowly. He took a seat at the bar and watched as the lights on stage changed from a tawny brown to a very dim, darkening orange.

 

The woman who had sang before was not the one entering the stage now, but was among the audience. Taekwoon could see her bright yellow hair from where he sat and he could see her watching the stage with a transfixed anticipation he felt inside himself. The lights shimmered slightly, brightening in the center of the stage where a tall microphone stood unattended. Then, very suddenly, like an apparition or something divine, a boy stepped into the light dressed handsomely in a tailored suit.

 

“Hey, _soldato—_ ” The cigarette girl came close to Taekwoon's ear. “ _Tuo amico_ is waiting for you. He is there.” She pointed to Jaehwan who watched the stage.

 

“Thank you.”

 

The girl left.

 

Taekwoon did not go at once to the table but continued to watch the stage as the band members eased into a slow, melancholic song that was not like anything Taekwoon had heard before. It was an English song and the boy sang it well. One could tell by the crooning of his voice that it was a song of heartache; it spread heavily through the cafe, forcing the troops to simmer in their excitement. It was not a song one talked over.

 

He was lovely—and there was nothing more Taekwoon could say. He was lovely and lovelier still with every passing moment. He was an anxious creature with trembling hands which gripped the microphone tightly, but his voice was steady, like something dreamed up.

 

When Taekwoon approached the table, he turned away from the performance for only a moment and was at once regretful of it.

 

Jaehwan watched him knowingly. “Now you've gone and fallen in love. Of _course_ ,” he said, “you must have the prettiest thing here.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Why don't we move a little closer to the stage? You will be able to see him better then.”

 

“You go.”

 

“You won't come?”

 

“No.”

 

“Afraid to look desperate?”

 

“I will leave you,” Taekwoon said irritably. “I will go back to the villa and leave you here and you can be an ass on your own.”

 

Jaehwan laughed. “You are being a baby! Why do you want to act like this, baby? All right. I'll be quiet. You can watch your boy and I'll sit here and be quiet. Act like I'm not here.”

 

Taekwoon did not speak. He watched only the stage and the boy upon it and did not look away until he had stopped singing. And when another song began, Taekwoon watched with equal interest. He did not notice when Jaehwan left to buy a drink and did not notice when he returned. He knew only the music and the boy and the lights that shined from him like gems.

 

It was quite a long time later—though it did not feel this way to Taekwoon—that Jaehwan leaned close to his side.

 

He said, “I'm very tired.”

 

“You should go back to the house. Rest up so that you will feel well to-morrow.”

 

“Will you come too?”

 

“Later.”

 

“Ah, yes, all right.” Jaehwan patted Taekwoon's shoulder. “Go to your boy. Your lovely singing boy. And then let me know all about it to-morrow.”

 

“Go to hell,” Taekwoon said dearly.

 

They did not embrace, but stood with heads bowed closely together in acknowledgment. Then Jaehwan left, teetering on his small feet as he was swept by the winds down the road toward the sea.

 

The music stopped and the boy spoke out toward the audience, asking, “Have I dampened the mood? It's so quiet in here now.”

 

A few soldiers responded with soft laughter, others with drinks raised.

 

"Let's end with something livelier now, so we can get back to where we were before.” An eruption of noise urged the boy on, who called out _grazie, grazie!_ as the band began to play a strange tune. It was all noise and very loud. It was not a type of music Taekwoon had heard and wondered if it was something new—brought over from the west, perhaps, where music thrived greatly.

 

It was then, as the song progressed, that Taekwoon rose from the table and walked slowly, quietly, from the dining area toward the side of the stage where he stood with a lighted cigarette, watching very closely to the performance.

 

He stopped a passing cigarette girl and asked, “What is his name? _Il ragazzo_.”

 

“Hongbin,” she told him. “You like him?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“A lot of people like him.”

 

He asked if after the performance she could call to him and tell him someone would like to speak to him. “I will be at the serving bar. But he doesn't have to come if he doesn't want to. You let him know that.”

 

Then he waited.

 

It was not long before the song came to an end, but it was a long time before the boy came to the bar, dressed not as nicely anymore. He wore a fitted t-shirt tucked into a pair of deep blue trousers. He was handsome as all the world.

 

“Who are you?” he demanded lightly.

 

Taekwoon did not allow himself to be startled. He offered his hand and then his name.

 

“What does a soldier want with me?”

 

“I only wanted to tell you how lovely I thought you were to-night.” He awaited a response that did not come and felt very foolish as he was regarded with great skepticism.

 

“I'm sorry,” Taekwoon said. “It was nothing important. That was all.” He was terribly embarrassed and wanted to leave.

 

“I've never seen you before,” said Hongbin. “Have you always been here?”

 

“No. I'm passing through.”

 

“Passing through to where?”

 

“The front.”

 

“Why would anyone want to go there?”

 

“It's an honor, is it not?” Then, when Hongbin turned away from him. “Have I offended you?”

 

“No. But I don't like the war.”

 

“I'm sorry,” Taekwoon said again. “I wanted only to tell you I enjoyed your performance.” He bowed his head politely. “I'll leave now.”

 

It was an awful feeling to leave that way. He walked with his head lowered as the rest of his body burned. Hongbin had been impossibly beautiful with a voice masculine and deep, though it was obvious he could not have been older than twenty; and he had spoken with a sheer sense of distaste. How stupid, Taekwoon thought. How very stupid he was to have approached him at all.

 

“ _Soldato—_!”

 

Stopped at the entrance, Taekwoon turned back.

 

There was a slight pause and then Hongbin asked, “Do you have a cigarette for me?”

 

“I do, yes.”

 

“They aren't that terrible American kind, are they?”

 

Taekwoon took out the cigarette box. “No. They are Italiano.”

 

“Like you?”

 

Taekwoon laughed. “No. Not like me.”

 

“I am teasing.”

 

Hongbin came up next to Taekwoon and took the offered cigarette. He allowed Taekwoon to light it and did not speak until it was mostly smoked.

 

“If I was rude inside, I'm sorry. I feel that I was.”

 

“It's all right,” Taekwoon said.

 

“It isn't, but thank you for saying so.” He watched his feet as they passed through a tunnel leading to port. When they came to the other side, the road opened up very wide and all the boats lay silently across the water.

 

“You have to understand the soldiers here aren't usually kind. I thought that you, too, would be this way.”

 

“How do you know that I am not?”

 

Hongbin spoke slowly like a man that thought very hard about what he would say before he said it. He did not linger on words, but rather picked them carefully. It was a marvelous thing, Taekwoon thought, to watch Hongbin speak.

 

“I don't. But I don't think that you are.” He stopped. “Did you really mean what you said about my performance? Did you really like it so much?”

 

“I adored it.”

 

Hongbin smiled. “So you are a man that admires music?”

 

“I suppose. But, maybe, not as much as you.”

 

“No? _Perché_?”

 

They continued to walk, but were very cautious of one another. One did not walk faster than the other and when they spoke, they spoke directly.

 

Taekwoon said, “I would say that I'm more of a man for pictures. I love the ones that come from the west, but because the war, I have not seen any in a long time.”

 

He said, “I have been back and forth from the front many times over the years. It becomes difficult to remember much else.”

 

They stopped at the pier where the large pilings came up from the sea. Hongbin leaned against a piling and watched Taekwoon curiously.

 

He asked, “Why did you join the army?”

 

“In a way, I had to and I felt I ought to, because I had been living in Italy a year before the war started.”

 

Hongbin looked away. He looked out toward the water that rushed up against the pier like something alive reaching for them.

 

“I cannot tell if you are noble or stupid.” He walked toward the water to where the pier ended and sat with his legs swinging above the sea. He spoke of nothing as if thinking very hard and did not stir from his daydreams when Taekwoon sat beside him.

 

The line of Hongbin's nose was very sharp as was the line of his brow, creased with an anxiety Taekwoon had seen many times. It was obvious then the thought that turned over inside him. Hongbin had lost someone to the war. Whether it had been a father, a brother—or someone else entirely, Taekwoon would not ask. But it was clear Hongbin suffered.

 

“What are you thinking of?” asked Taekwoon.

 

A silence fell over them. An insufferable silence broadened by the blowing wind. The water raised up and wet the tops of Taekwoon's boots, but he did not care. He watched Hongbin with great interest.

 

“I'm thinking how foolish it is of me to sit here with you, because no matter what you will go back to the front.” They looked at one another. “But I want to be here with you. I like it very much.”

 

He looked deeply into Taekwoon's face. “Do you like to be here with me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then what are we to do?”

 

“ _Non lo so, tesoro_. I do not know.”

 

A moment passed and then Hongbin rushed forward and placed his mouth against Taekwoon's ear. He whispered then, low and inviting with his breath warm, “To-morrow, when the sun has set, come find me. I'll be waiting for you.”

 

Then he bound to his feet and Taekwoon was left with his boots in the water, the blue dark of moonlight left in the place where Hongbin had been.

 

Taekwoon did not call out to him, though a part of his heart wished that he had. Instead, he watched the flow of the tides and the light reflected from them and thought of the music heard far away in the cafes that still clamored with life. He admired the world then, lost in vague wonderment that life should go on. After he had returned to the front, the small city would not change. It would become empty, perhaps, stripped of the liveliness that was the brigade, but it would not change. The people whom lived there would continue to live and the ones that passed through would not stop to think of other travelers that had come before them. It would be as it had been before Taekwoon had come.

 

**III.**

It was in the night that the rain came. It filled the sea and all the roads and pelted against the windows of the villa so that sleep did not come. Taekwoon lay awake watching the ceiling.

 

A soldier came into the room much later but did not know Taekwoon was awake, so crawled into bed without word. Then Taekwoon closed his eyes and was able to sleep.

 

He woke again when daylight came. It crossed the room and lay across his eyes like a blanket of warm color, bright and inviting and very calming.

 

He cleaned up quickly and thought himself handsome as he combed his hair to one side. Jaehwan stood beside him in the large bathroom, watching Taekwoon as he shaved.

 

“I've never seen you so clean.”

 

Taekwoon dried his face with a hand towel. “You will probably never see me so clean again.”

 

“Then I'll take advantage of it now.” He grinned and left the bathroom, leading them both through the top floor of the villa until they came to the stairs. They could smell the aroma of cooking meat as breakfast was prepared.

 

As they came into the dining area, they caught the end of a conversation between men. One was very agitated.

 

He said, “You know that it's bad luck to read the papers. Why do you go on and read them anyway?”

 

“If we are called to-day, would you then have time to read them? Or would you go blindly?” the other said.

 

“What do the papers tell of?” asked Taekwoon. He selected a fruit from a dish on the table.

 

“Nothing of importance to us. The fighting goes on, but too far from here.”

 

“Good. I am not ready to go back yet.”

 

This was met with a bellowing of laughter. Taekwoon left the dining hall and then the villa and stood in the courtyard with a cigarette in hand. Jaehwan came up beside him and placed a hand upon his shoulder.

 

“What are we to do to-day?” he asked.

 

“What ever you want.”

 

“Oh, I have nothing in mind. I have been here two weeks and have exhausted this city.”

 

“Then go to port.”

 

Jaehwan shook his head. “It smells of fish and sea water and things I won't dream of. And to-night? What of to-night?”

 

“I am meeting someone to-night.”

 

“Your boy?”

 

Taekwoon filled his mouth with smoke and he did not answer. He looked out toward the empty road where passers-by walked quickly, bundled against the coming cold. It was a bright autumn morning and the sun beamed its white light and dried the water that collected by the roadsides, in muddy puddles of brackish water.

 

“You like this boy?” Jaehwan asked. “You cannot tell me that you don't. I saw the way you looked at him last night and how you had already devoted yourself to him.”

 

“You don't know anything.”

 

“I do,” Jaehwan pestered. “You like to think you're this big mysterious man. But you're not.” He winked and left back inside, leaving Taekwoon in the empty courtyard where life was still.

 

Taekwoon dropped his cigarette and followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He waited and he read but felt that night would not come for a very long time and soon felt that it would not come at all. But the sun did dim and when all he could see was the silhouette of the great Mount Vesuvius, Taekwoon bid farewell to Jaehwan.

 

“You're like a boy waiting for his first date,” Jaehwan declared. “Even your face is rosy with color.”

 

“You're insufferable.”

 

The night was cold and it was then Taekwoon knew the summer had truly gone. Outside, the city came alive. The cafes stood loud and full, with light shining as bright as daylight out onto the cobbled road. Windows above bookstores, above closed-up market places, filled with color as people drifted home. There was a notable sense of pleasantness that Taekwoon fell into easily. He was light. He was happy. He followed the smells of cooking coffee and poured wine until he came to the cafe where he had watched Hongbin sing and he felt fine indeed, with his heart close to bursting.

 

Hongbin was already on stage. He crooned a sad tune that Taekwoon admired as he walked to the serving bar.

 

“A seltzer, _per favore_.”

 

He drank in silence with a cigarette burning in the ashtray. He watched Hongbin sing, watched him move subtly with the microphone in his hands; and, later, when he swept the room with a searching look, Taekwoon knew in his heart that he was looking for him. So he raised a hand and caught Hongbin's eye. It was then he smiled.

 

The night went on that way. Taekwoon watched with devout interest as Hongbin performed each of his songs with a keen passion that one could feel like a touch to their soul. He was beautiful up there and Taekwoon could not turn away.

 

“You again.” The cigarette girl from the night before came to Taekwoon's side. “Where is _tuo amico_?”

 

“At the villa with the rest.”

 

“Why did he not come?”

 

“I'm not sure.”

 

She followed Taekwoon's gaze to the stage, then turned back to him with a small chirruping laugh. “You like him.”

 

Taekwoon gave a polite nod.

 

“A lot of people that come in here do.”

 

“So I've heard.”

 

“He is a kind boy. He's been here a long time.”

 

“How long?”

 

“Very long. Years. He came when he was eighteen.”

 

“Was that before the war?” Taekwoon asked.

 

“A little. Only a little, though. The Russians and Germans,” she flicked her hand as if staving off cigarette smoke, “all of them. They were already fighting, but Italia had not yet started to fight.”

 

The girl stepped away then, whispering as she went, “My name is Sabina. You tell _tuo amico_ to come see me.” Then she was gone and Taekwoon was left staring up at an empty stage.

 

It was quite a while before Hongbin came from the back, but when he came he came as a vision with his hair swept back and all his face burning with light.

 

He smiled at Taekwoon as he approached.

 

“Follow me,” he said.

 

He did not stop to say hello and he did not turn around to see if Taekwoon was following. But, of course, Taekwoon was; and they left the cafe without notice and stepped into the cool air that smelled of salt. Here Hongbin reached for Taekwoon and took him by the elbow.

 

He said, “I was worried you would not come.”

 

“You told me to,” said Taekwoon.

 

“Do you always do what you're told?”

 

“No.” Taekwoon stopped beneath a tunnel and took Hongbin's hand from his arm and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the knuckles softly. “ _Ciao, bello._ You look very handsome to-night.”

 

“ _Grazie_. _”_ Hongbin laughed. It was a gentle sound, hummed from the center of his chest.

 

They continued to walk, Hongbin leading a single step ahead. He kept his hand in the crook of Taekwoon's elbow all the time and did not speak much. He was brimming with an excitement Taekwoon did not understand.

 

“Did you have a nice day?” Taekwoon inquired.

 

“Oh, I suppose,” Hongbin laughed. “I don't really know. I did nothing at all.” He looked at Taekwoon. “ _e tu_?”

 

“I suppose, as well. I. . .found myself waiting for sundown.”

 

“That's lovely to hear.” Hongbin dropped his voice down to a playful whisper. “Because so did I.”

 

The town square was quiet at this time of night. Where the morning market stood hours before now was filled with empty crates. The sound of their shoes across the cobbles was all either man heard in their short journey through.

 

“I have a surprise for you,” Hongbin said. “You will love it.”

 

“Will I?”

 

“You said you like the pictures, didn't you? Do you like Chaplin?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Hongbin pulled Taekwoon then. He pulled him gently toward a cafe at the end of the road, where the light did not touch. All one could see was the faint glow of the window; the curtains were drawn; the front door closed-up.

 

“They show films here. It is not like the film houses in the west. Unlike a film house at all, really, but it's dark and romantic and I love it here.”

 

As they neared the cafe, Hongbin dropped his hand from Taekwoon's arm and put it deliberately in his pocket.

 

He said, “They are showing some Chaplin film to-night. Not anything new, you understand. Europe has trouble gathering anything new. You know why.”

 

“I know.”

 

“So we will watch something a little older. Perhaps you've seen it, but. . .”

 

“I don't mind.” Taekwoon felt the first waves of excitement rush into him. There was an undeniable urge to put his arm around Hongbin's shoulders, but he did not.

 

“What is it called?” Taekwoon asked.

 

“Oh, I don't know, _amore_. It's in Italian, though. Does that bother you?”

 

“No.” Taekwoon smiled. “ _Niente affatto, caro_. Not at all.” He quickly leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Hongbin's ear. “Let us go then. I'll die here of excitement if we wait.”

 

Inside it was dark and very warm and the screen was simply a projection on a tall bland wall, but the film was lovely and much better than Taekwoon had remembered it to be. And he felt the pangs of fluttering in the pit of his belly when Hongbin pressed his small hand into the palm of his own. Weightless, like a feather. Taekwoon gripped him tightly and did not let go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had become impossibly darker when they left the cafe, so that it was only the stars above the gulf that let off light. Taekwoon felt a swaying inside him as they walked quietly alongside one another, but it was not until they slipped into the narrow alley between buildings that he put an arm around the small of Hongbin's back and swept him up and into his arms.

 

Taekwoon whispered, “You're wonderful.”

 

“It was nothing,” Hongbin whispered in return.

 

They did not speak above this low tone, lost now to a different life. And it was in this dim alley, brightened only by the stars, that Taekwoon hooked a finger beneath Hongbin's chin and kissed his mouth.

 

With arms about his neck, Hongbin pulled Taekwoon nearer and nearer until the wall met his back, then Taekwoon placed an open palm against the wall. It was that way that they kissed and did not stop even for air. Taekwoon felt the swelling in his chest and all the fear in his heart and he feared it was love that he felt inside him but, still, he did not pull away. He kissed and was kissed and lifted Hongbin into his arms so that his feet did not touch the ground and held him close and very still with his mouth soft and warm like something beautiful.

 

Then, suddenly, Hongbin pulled away.

 

“What is it?” Taekwoon touched his face. “Did I do something?”

 

“No, _amore_ , you're fine. Not here, OK? I don't want to kiss here.”

 

He took Taekwoon by the hand and led him out of the alley and to port, where it was darker than dark it was almost black. They did not speak nor did they look at one another. They walked until they came to the pier where the boats ebbed with the waves of the sea. Then Hongbin stepped into one boat and carefully pulled Taekwoon by the hand to sit beside him.

 

Once settled, Hongbin lay on the floor of the boat and told Taekwoon to come closer.

 

“Here?” Taekwoon whispered. “Whose boat is this?”

 

“ _Non lo so_ ,” Hongbin laughed. “It doesn't matter. No one will know.”

 

So it was that Taekwoon lay on the floor of the boat beside Hongbin, with his arms around his body and his mouth against his throat. There was a great infinite silence that befell them and in this silence they came closer as the ground moved beneath them as if the world was tilting away and bringing only darkness. But it was a good darkness that brought color to Hongbin's face and chest so that he was warm under Taekwoon's mouth. Taekwoon kissed the column of his neck, the valley of his chest so thin and fragile it was as if the boy was made up of rose petals. He listened to the sounds Hongbin made with a fire building inside of him. It was a fire that went on burning after Hongbin pushed him away, smiling with a nervousness they both felt.

 

Hongbin whispered, “Will I see you again?”

 

“ _Si_ , _tesoro_. You will see me always if that is what you want.”

 

Hongbin watched the sky as Taekwoon watched him and they lay together as the night went on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The time that followed that first time together was such lovely time that Taekwoon thought it all a dream he would soon wake from. He felt it in the night and in the morning when the light would fall across his face and rouse him. He felt it, especially, in the evening when Hongbin would sit astride him, watching him, with a light in his eyes that was as precious as it was wonderful.

 

They would meet at port as the sun was eclipsed by the great mountains of Napoli and hold one another in the quiet dark between buildings where the ground was made up of dust that tickled the nose. There was not a time that they were not touching and it was in this way that they loved one another wholly, with their hearts together and their hands together and all the light burned out of the sky so that the only light was that of Hongbin's glistening eyes, the brightness of his face and his smile when Taekwoon whispered sweetly to him.

 

“You're a strange man,” Hongbin said one evening as they sat together in an empty cafe. “Strange, but very charming.” He spoke with his chin cupped within his palm, smiling pleasantly.

 

Taekwoon had not understood and so simply smiled in return and touched his foot to Hongbin's foot beneath the table so that he knew his words had not gone ignored.

 

Then Hongbin said, “I have a secret.” His eyes glittered wonderfully. “But I can't tell you it here.”

 

“Then, where?”

 

“Anywhere, but not here.”

 

So they left the cafe for the quiet of the town so early in the evening and had come to the place between the buildings and the town square, where one could hear the rushing of the waves in the gulf and smell the salty breeze of the sea. It was there Hongbin pressed his face to the crook of Taekwoon's neck and inhaled deeply to say, “I love you, do you know that?”

 

He looked up with eyes that bloomed with wonder. “ _Tu sei il soldato mio_ and I love you, do you know?”

 

“I know it,” Taekwoon said. “I know it and have known it and I love you the same.”

 

“Oh, you don't have to say it only because I did.”

 

“No, _amore_ , no. I love you very much.” He kissed the place between Hongbin's eyes and held him tightly as if afraid he may lose him to another moment.

 

“I have loved you all this time,” Taekwoon said honestly. “I told myself that I did not, but I did and I do and I feel that I will love you for ever.”

 

“Isn't for ever too long?”

 

“For ever is not long enough.”

 

“Oh, you're sweet, _amore_ , like a true romantic.”

 

Hongbin rose onto the toes of his shoes and wrapped his arms tightly around Taekwoon's neck and kissed the lobe of his ear, telling him again and again _ti amo—ti amo—I will love you for ever, too_.

 

And it was in the warmth of Hongbin's arms that held so tightly that Taekwoon could feel the beating of his heart like a war drum very far away, deep in his ears with the rushing of blood, that he knew he had not loved before and would not love again in the way that he loved Hongbin at that moment. He had never felt the love that he felt then. He had not lived in a world of fine admiration as he lived then. And he knew it in his heart that as Hongbin's grip loosened about his neck reality would press deeper into him and soon it would be upon them and they would not be able to hide from it, but would have to face it head-on. But until then, Taekwoon would go on pretending. He would live in the world where only Hongbin existed, where the only light was the light from Hongbin's smile and where there was not a war so close to the horizon the soul could feel the firing of guns in the nighttime. From that moment on, they belonged to somewhere else. 

 

**IV.**

It was a cool Sunday morning when a lieutenant of a neighboring infantry came with news from the front. The fighting was getting close. They dispatched three ambulance drivers and a medic, all whom were not to return until called back.

 

Taekwoon was outside the villa, washing the lieutenant's car when Hongbin came. He was preoccupied by the news and did not hear him.

 

“ _Ciao, amore_ ,” he called cheerfully. “You look very handsome to-day.”

 

Taekwoon smiled a smile that embarrassed him and turned away. He wore only a pair of fatigue trousers and the army issued dog-tag necklace which jangled softly when he moved.

 

“What do you want?” he said dearly.

 

“Is _soldato mio_ busy to-day?”

 

“No, _amore_ , I have only to wash this car, then I'll be available to you.”

 

“Good!” Hongbin's excitement was tangible. “I rented us bicycles to take out to the meadows where there aren't any people at all. What do you think about that?”

 

“I think it sounds lovely.” Taekwoon wanted badly to kiss Hongbin then, for he looked darling that morning. He wore a heavy sweatshirt that came down over his hands so that it was as if he wore mittens. His hair was windblown and his face rosy from the chill.

 

“Wait for me in the cafe,” Taekwoon told him. “I'll finish here and clean up. So wait for me and I'll be there soon.”

 

Before Hongbin turned away, Taekwoon put a hand on his wrist as if to keep him.

 

He said, “If there was not many people around, I would kiss you.”

 

“Kiss me anyway.”

 

So Taekwoon leaned in and kissed the bridge of Hongbin's nose and heard his laugh and saw his smile. Then he released his grip on the wrist and let Hongbin go.

 

It did not take him long to finish the car and clean up. And when he came down the road to the cafe, he came quickly, as if not wanting a single moment away from Hongbin. Then he found Hongbin in the cafe, sitting watching the passers-by outside the window and felt a happiness swell inside him.

 

“Where is this meadow you want to go to?”

 

“Not far.”

 

“And we will go by bicycle?”

 

“Yes.”

 

They left the cafe.

 

“Can you ride one?” Hongbin teased. “If you can't, that's all right, you can ride on the back of mine.”

 

Taekwoon laughed and put his arm around Hongbin's waist. “I can ride one very well.”

 

The cycles Hongbin had rented came from an elderly man at the edge of town, who valued the army greatly. He told Taekwoon as much when he saw him, able to tell immediately that he was part of the brigade.

 

“I would have joined had it not been for my eyesight,” he explained. He had been partly blinded in 1899 at the end of the Mahdist War and had never recovered; and thus, when he looked into Taekwoon's face he looked with the deep concentration all men look when they cannot see well what is in front of them.

 

Taekwoon thanked him sincerely, but would not accept the old man's discounted offer on the cycles. He explained he had not joined the army for such reasons and was grateful the old man did not take it as ill intent.

 

“You're very kind with people,” Hongbin said as they passed through the market. The town square was lively that morning with all the Sunday shops blooming with life. He spoke admirably and was not afraid to show the care he so deeply felt. “I think you're wonderful.”

 

“You're awfully biased and I'll hear nothing of it.”

 

It was soon that they came to the end of town where the cobbles gave way to dirt clouted roads and fields of browning grass. In the fields there were wild flowers that bowed toward the earth as if weighed down by the coming of winter, many having lost their petals so that when the two bicycles cut through the grass, bits of earth and loosened petals and leaves were thrown up from the earth in cloud-like bursts.

 

They came to a place where the chestnut trees sprouted and the earth was covered by debris of nature and the air smelled sweetly as the air had smelled in the mountains, but there was no death to mingle with the scent so that it was lovely to smell.

 

Hongbin dismounted his bicycle and leaned it against one of many trees. He motioned for Taekwoon to do the same, then led them out of the trees and into the meadow that spread like an ocean before them. One could see the grey silhouette of Vesuvius standing as a God may stand before man and one could feel the chill touch their spine at the sight of it. Taekwoon felt light and strange, but it was a good feeling he did not want to lose.

 

The hills were soft and green as they sat together in grass tall as a small child with the orange light of early autumn warm against them.

 

“Come here,” Taekwoon said. He brought Hongbin into his lap so they sat with their chests together; the beating of Hongbin's heart palpable beneath his shirt.

 

“I feel like I have missed you,” said Taekwoon. He pressed his mouth to Hongbin's throat. “Like I have not seen you in so long.”

 

Hongbin did not laugh as Taekwoon had imagined he would. He put his hands on the back of Taekwoon's head and cradled him closer.

 

“I don't know what I'll do once I go away. When I'm back at the front and you are not there, what will I do?” Taekwoon whispered. “I alone can't stand your being away for half a night.”

 

“Let's never talk of that.”

 

“All right.”

 

“We'll only talk of it when the time comes.”

 

But by then, the thought had been placed inside him and Taekwoon could tell by the stiffening of Hongbin's spine and the way he would not allow himself to rest comfortably that the reminder of the front had brought discomfort.

 

“Why do you dislike the war so much, _amore_? Can you tell me?”

 

“I can. But, perhaps, you can figure it out on your own.”

 

“I know only what you tell me, and you've told me nothing.”

 

“You aren't a foolish man, Taekwoon. You know well why I don't like the war nor the army nor any soldier but you.” He spoke affectionately and held Taekwoon's face between his hands. “Why do you act like you don't know?”

 

“Because it's your business and I won't assume it.”

 

“How noble.”

 

“ _Tesoro_ , don't tease me.”

 

Hongbin kissed Taekwoon's mouth and said, “Come lie with me.”

 

He lay on the hillside with an arm folded beneath his head and all the sunlight settling over his golden face. Taekwoon came to lie beside him with a hand low on Hongbin's belly as if to caress him gently.

 

“Tell me,” Taekwoon whispered.

 

“There isn't much to tell.”

 

“I want to know. Who was he?”

 

“He was an old friend.”

 

“How did you meet?”

 

“Oh,” Hongbin sighed. “That doesn't matter at all. But I came here with him before everything went to hell. I guess he was a little like you; he thought because we were here, he ought to join the army. He went so far to suggest we join together. But I'm not a fool.”

 

Taekwoon moved his hand smoothly up from Hongbin's belly to his chest and held the palm over his heart.

 

“I knew the chance of one of us coming back would be small, and I knew the chance of both of us was improbable.”

 

“You were right to think so.”

 

“Well. He went and he did not come back and that is all that really matters in the end. And even then, it does not matter anymore.”

 

Taekwoon leaned forward and placed his cheek to Hongbin's cheek and held him that way. He had lost many comrades, so many that he could not successfully remember them all, and he recognized the pain that played so clearly in Hongbin's mind. He also knew that saying so would not ease it in any way.

 

“I'm glad you did not join,” Taekwoon said.

 

“Surprising coming from a _soldato_.”

 

“I am a man first. And not a foolish one as you say.”

 

“Perhaps we would have met in one of the great battles and fallen in love.”

 

“We would have never met that way and you would have never loved me.” Taekwoon spoke without any hard feelings. He simply spoke truthfully and would not let Hongbin reminisce a daydream that would not have happened.

 

Sitting up, Taekwoon looked out toward the meadows and all the flowers and felt unhappy for the first time in days. He said, “I hate that you've suffered.”

 

“You've suffered far more than I.”

 

Taekwoon shook his head. “I have lost comrades and friends and people that I cared for, but no one that I loved deeply. They died and I accepted it and moved on as I am expected to. But you are here, still, in a city that you came to together and now you stay alone.”

 

Hongbin put his arms around Taekwoon's neck and whispered to him, _don't think of it, think nothing of it now_ , and Taekwoon felt very foolish to need such comfort when it had not been his loss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was after noon when the rain came. It started lightly and did not pick up for a long time, so they stayed in the meadows on the hillside until it really began to pour and came into the trees where they were not so wet and the air smelled of the earth.

 

Taekwoon did not want to cycle back in the rain, but knew they could not stay below the trees for long. He wrapped his arms tightly around Hongbin's body as if to push all the warmth inside him into Hongbin as well.

 

Hongbin breathed deeply. “Would you like to see where I stay?”

 

“Yes. I would, very much.”

 

“It isn't far. Just over the hills, that way.” Hongbin pointed but Taekwoon could not see where it was Hongbin meant.

 

The villa they came to was not far from where they had been—not far at all—and it was a large house with many rooms rented as single apartments. Taekwoon recognized workers from the cafes around the city and few elderly men who worked at port. They were gathered in the dining hall, conversing in a friendly manner as if they had known one another for years.

 

“ _Ciao,_ Flora,” Hongbin said to one woman in particular. She had a mean face but a gentle voice and spoke dearly to Hongbin the way a woman may speak to a young nephew.

 

“ _Ciao,_ Hongbin. Where have you been? I have cooked and I waited but you did not come to eat.”

 

“I'll eat later.” He kissed her cheek. “Don't look at me that way. I promise, I will. Maybe not until much later, but I will.”

 

Hongbin then took Taekwoon by the hand and led him up the stairs. He spoke quietly of Flora and explained that she had lived in the villa the longest of them all. He said if he had ever needed a Mother, it would probably be her; then he did not say more.

 

The room Taekwoon was brought to was a dim, small room with a bed, a radio and a large bureau against one wall. There was a set of tall windows and a door that led to a balcony overlooking the trees and the hills and all the meadows far away from the sea. It was a charming room and Taekwoon liked it very much. But as they had entered the room, it was as if an awkwardness had fallen over them; they stood together but apart in many ways near the door that was now closed and locked.

 

The sunlight was dim as the rain came down hard in a thick mist outside the windows.

 

It seemed of great importance that Hongbin did not look into Taekwoon's face as he went about the room, collecting dropped clothes and other trinkets. He did not stop moving until Taekwoon came up beside him and placed a hand on his back.

 

He whispered, “You're all right. Come here.”

 

But Hongbin would not come.

 

“Do you want me to leave?”

 

“No.”

 

“Come here,” Taekwoon said again and this time Hongbin came.

 

He came into Taekwoon's arms with a rushed urgency and kissed with the same urgency so that it was difficult for Taekwoon to kiss in return. His body trembled. His breath caught in his throat. Taekwoon held Hongbin dearly and soothed him with a hand at his back.

 

He said, “You're all right, _amore_ , we will not do anything you do not want to do. We can stay here just like this and never move and only hold one another until the rain has stopped.”

 

“No,” Hongbin said. “I want to, I want to—I have wanted to for so long.”

 

“Now?”

 

“Now, and now, and now. . .” He pulled Taekwoon to the bed where the blankets smelled of lavender and the springs eased with a gentle creak beneath their bodies. Hongbin pulled until Taekwoon was as close as close could be and when he could not bring him any closer, he put his legs around Taekwoon's middle and held him that way. Their mouths never parted and the rain never stopped so that it was as if the pelting of the rain on the windowsill mirrored the beating of their hearts.

 

Hongbin had a softness to him that Taekwoon was not used to. Hard in places and very gentle in others, he was supple beneath Taekwoon's weight; his hands very gentle as they moved up and up and up Taekwoon's back to rest in his short cropped hair.

 

“Oh,” Hongbin said. “Oh, I love you, I love you, and I'm not scared at all, but I'm nervous.”

 

“Why, _amore_ , why are you nervous?”

 

“I don't know what to do. I've never. . .”

 

“Never with a man?”

 

“Nor a woman.”

 

“Then, truly, never?”

 

“Never,” Hongbin said. “Have you? Oh, don't tell me.”

 

“No,” Taekwoon lied. “I've never.”

 

“You don't have to lie for me. I know you have. Somewhere, with someone, I know it. Were they very nice to you?”

 

“I don't know what you are talking about. I've never been with man nor woman nor anyone at all.”

 

Hongbin smiled. “All right,” he said. “All right, _soldato mio_.” He brought Taekwoon's mouth to his mouth and kissed him softly.

 

“There is nothing to be nervous of,” Taekwoon said. “We will be good to each other and I will not hurt you at all. I promise I will not hurt you.”

 

“I know it, _amore_ , I know it all. Now stop talking and undress me.”

 

Taekwoon rolled his head forward so that it rest in the curve of Hongbin's neck. He put his hand very low and unclasped the buttons of Hongbin's shirt. He unclasped the trousers and pushed them down and then off his body and admired the boy who lay beneath him, tan and naked and soft under his touch.

 

“ _Tesoro mio_ , you are beautiful, truly beautiful.”

 

“I told you to stop talking.”

 

The only sounds that followed then were the sounds of the bed beneath their bodies and the creak of the shutters against the rain that fell harder and harder on the windowsill.

 

Hongbin panted. He clutched and he gasped and he held on very hard to Taekwoon who touched him where he had never been touched. Hongbin breathed Taekwoon's name into the dim light of the bedroom; he writhed as he was touched deeper and deeper until Taekwoon feared he may cry out. Then he put his mouth where his hand had been and felt the blood rush into his head as he felt Hongbin pulse against his tongue.

 

All the time the rain pelted the window and Taekwoon's heart beat heavily. All the time there was chaos inside him as Hongbin writhed gently on the bed with his head pushed very hard against the cushions. He could hear the tenets down-stairs as they walked up-stairs and passed the bedroom and he felt the creeping fear inside him that they would be interrupted, but then Hongbin covered his mouth with his own hands and arched softly off the bed and his body twitched as the end drew very near. Taekwoon could taste it in his mouth. It came quickly, but did not come all the way until he had moved his mouth up and away and placed it roughly against Hongbin's mouth. Then he pressed his body deeply into Hongbin's body and felt how desperate he had become. Then the world began to alter and it spun and the room became cold and dark as if there was nothing around them as Taekwoon closed his eyes and felt with his body the way Hongbin loved him. He felt with his hands and with his mouth and with every inch of himself the love Hongbin held out for him to take; and he took it. With each thrust of his body and the creak of the bed and the dull thud of the bed against the wall, he took it. Until Hongbin cried out his name and he clutched for him desperately, Taekwoon kept on taking and taking and then he was very aware that Hongbin was crying with his mouth trembling deeply and all the words that he wished to say were mangled in a sobbing breath.

 

Taekwoon feared he had hurt him. He pulled away suddenly and framed Hongbin's face with his hands. “What is it, what is it? Tell me. Where did I hurt you?”

 

“Oh, you didn't,” he said, but never did he stop crying. He cried with great gasping breaths that seemed to hurt him. He cried with his face against Taekwoon's bare shoulder, holding him as if all the world had fallen away.

 

It was a cry Taekwoon had not heard before, but one his heart understood at once. He held Hongbin and did not let go. He kissed him and caressed him and touched him where he wanted badly to be touched and he let him cry, but did not let him be alone. And he promised him with all his heart and all the air inside himself that there was no reason to cry—not now, he said. Not now and not ever.

 

“You will leave,” Hongbin said. “You will leave me and you won't come back, because they never come back.”

 

“No, no. I will come back. You'll see. And when I do we can go to Madrid. We can go to Paris when the war is over and all the world is back to normal.”

 

But Hongbin would not believe him. He shook his head and he held him tightly. “There will be no Paris. We will never go to Paris.”

 

Taekwoon kissed him and kissed him hard with all his body. He kissed him until he felt the tears had finally stopped, then he kissed him some more with his arms wrapped around him.

 

Taekwoon said, “You'll see.”

 

“Oh, I don't believe you.”

 

“How can you say that? When you say you love me, you cannot say you don't believe me.”

 

“I know you want to come back, but the chances, Taekwoon, they aren't any good.”

 

“There are never good chances in war. But I'll come back to you,” he said again. He would say it until Hongbin believed him. “And when I return, I will marry you. We will go to Madrid and I will marry you and we will go to Paris and never be apart again.”

 

“Oh,” Hongbin wept. “Do you really mean it, Taekwoon? Do you mean it honestly. Don't tell me things and not mean them.”

 

Taekwoon kissed him. “I mean it.”

 

What had seized Hongbin had then released him and he sighed quietly with his head leaned back and his eyes closed. He held Taekwoon by the shoulders and did not cry further, but whispered his name and said that he loved him. He did not say that he believed him. He did not say anything at all. But he urged Taekwoon to touch him and together again they fell back into the world-less dark where the only sound was the sound of the quiet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later, Taekwoon lay with his head against Hongbin's bare chest and listened to him breathe. He said, “You have a lovely heartbeat.”

 

“Oh?” Hongbin laughed.

 

“The loveliest heartbeat I've ever heard.”

 

“Have you heard many heartbeats?”

 

“No, but yours is the loveliest.”

 

He came up then and sat beside Hongbin with his back against the wall. He lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke up to the ceiling. They lay together that way, undressed beneath the covers; Hongbin put his leg between Taekwoon's legs and lay his head to his shoulder. All the time Taekwoon smoked and did not speak. They watched the evening rise over the hills and all the bright sparks of coming starlight.

 

Hongbin put their hands together and then put his fingers in the spaces between Taekwoon's fingers. “You will miss me, won't you?”

 

“What a silly thing to ask me.”

 

“I only want to hear you say it.”

 

“Yes,” Taekwoon said. “Yes, yes, I will miss you.”

 

“Will you think of me?”

 

“No, _amore_ ,” Taekwoon said honestly. “I can't think of you where I'll be going. It will only do harm.”

 

“If you will not think of me, how will you remember me?”

 

“Another silly thing to ask.”

 

“Oh, I'm just nervous. I'm always nervous. I love you and I don't want to think that you will forget me.”

 

“How could I?” Taekwoon found it rather funny Hongbin had such a thought. He smiled and leaned over Hongbin as he lay on the bed, becoming embarrassed. “Your way of thinking is extraordinary!”

 

“Don't _tease_.”

 

“You are the silliest man I've ever met. Forget you? I will never live a day on this earth without thinking of you.”

 

Taekwoon extinguished the cigarette and lay between Hongbin's thighs with his arms wrapped around him. “Forget you,” he whispered. “Oh, my love, you _are_ an idiot.”

 

“You can't say that!” He laughed as he kicked Taekwoon away but did not kick him hard and would not let him go very far before he pulled Taekwoon back again. He said, “I can't stand you.”

 

“I know it.”

 

“Kiss me,” Hongbin said. “Kiss me before it gets too late.”

 

“It is already too late.”

 

“Then kiss me quickly.”

 

They kissed and the night went on. They did not stop until they absolutely had to and even then, Hongbin would not release Taekwoon easily. It was that way they hid from time and did not allow themselves to be found until the last moment.

 

**V.**

Early in the morning, Taekwoon heard the trucks in the streets. News had come from the front the night before and the troops were to be sent away. He had not expected the trucks so early and cursed himself for having stayed at the villa.

 

“Go now,” Jaehwan said. He dressed quickly in fatigues. Taekwoon was already dressed. “If you go quickly, I will say that you slipped away early for a coffee. Go now before the trucks begin to leave.”

 

Taekwoon went out the back of the villa and ran down the cobbled roads leading to the house Hongbin stayed. He passed the cafes and the morning market. The light was now breaching the top of Vesuvius and glowed a deep orange. It shined in his eyes as he passed through the town and came to the house and up the stairs where Flora was on the porch sweeping debris from the nightly rain.

 

She stopped him. “He isn't here.”

 

“What?”

 

“He left for errands.”

 

“This early?” Taekwoon felt the rising panic. “Where did he go?”

 

“The market.”

 

Taekwoon told her thank you and went back down the road to the market where he could not find Hongbin. It was getting late. He felt he tugging of his heart and the deep pools of anxiety growing deeper inside him. He was out of time.

 

He went back to the house where Flora smoked a cigar on the porch with the morning light.

 

“Will you tell him I was called back suddenly?” Her expression changed from one of disinterest to deep sympathy. “You tell him, please? Tell him I will write him once I can.”

 

“ _Si, soldato,_ I will tell him.”

 

“ _Grazie, grazie_.” He kissed her hand. “Farewell, then.”

 

He came down the stairs with his heart in his throat and all the world dimming around him. He looked over his shoulder as he walked, begging what force of the universe for Hongbin to come, but he did not show.

 

Taekwoon went up the road and to the trucks where Jaehwan waited for him. Together they climbed into the back of one truck.

 

“You will be all right.”

 

“I couldn't find him.”

 

“Where is he?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

“You'll see him again.” Jaehwan touched Taekwoon's arm. “Don't think of anything but what we're to do now.”

 

It was when the engine turned over and clouds of smoke came from the exhaust into the cool morning air that Taekwoon looked out toward the town and saw, very far away, Hongbin coming down the road.

 

He rode a bicycle and rode it quickly until he came up to the trucks. Then he jumped from the cycle which came down with a crash on the side of the road and took Taekwoon's hand that reached for him over the side of the truck.

 

“Flora told me—” He was breathless and sweating and full of relief. Taekwoon was grateful to see that he was not crying.

 

“Why so suddenly?” Hongbin asked. “There was no warning.”

 

“There was never going to be one.”

 

The truck began to pull down the road and Hongbin was forced to let go. “I'll be seeing you, then.”

 

“Yes,” Taekwoon said. “Not good-by, all right?”

 

“All right.”

 

“I'll see you.”

 

Taekwoon watched Hongbin as the truck pulled farther down the road alongside all the other trucks. He did not feel the weight of war as he had felt so often before. He only felt the sinking of his heart into the pit of his belly.

 

He kissed his hand and held it up. It made him feel very empty when Hongbin waved to him.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 _All the life you have or ever will have_  
_is today, tonight, tomorrow_  
_today, tonight, tomorrow  
_ _over and over again (I hope), ..._

_—  Ernest Hemingway_

 

 

 

 

**book two.**

**VI**.

They drove through the night in a cadence that mimicked a death march. It was very dark and all one could see was the light of the moon and the stars and the glare of the lights from the truck ahead of them. The rain returned in the night, so that each man was forced to sit close to one another with cloaks pulled up around their heads. Taekwoon looked into the dark and watched the moon that brightened behind thin cloud. He watched it disappear behind a much larger cloud so that there was no light at all. He was reluctant to think, but so aware of his own being, to think was all he had. He felt very alone in the cold, filled with a sense of pride and regret. He was tired. He was nervous. It went on that way until they reached Gorizia.

 

**VII.**

They passed through the town of Gorizia and could see the houses had been hit. There stood two villas, dark as something dead; the river had rose up and overflowed so that the roads were very muddy and all the fields appeared as marshes in the dark. From there, they dispersed gradually. Some went farther into base as others loitered, awaiting news of the offensive; Taekwoon followed the muddy road to the villas and found the Major sat with his head rested in one hand.

 

The major spoke to no one, to everyone, when he said, “It's bad. The worst since the start.”

 

“Sir?” said Jaehwan. He mirrored Taekwoon perfectly with his rucksack over one shoulder, his cap pulled off and held in one hand. “How bad is it, sir?”

 

“The worst,” the Major said. “I’m glad as hell to see you here. Oh, it’s the worst.” It was unnerving to see the dregs of exhausted marred across his aged face. He was very tan, but appeared pale under the sallow light of the lanterns.

 

“But the summer is over,” the Major said. “I’m grateful for that. It was a hard summer.”

 

“Indeed, sir,” a soldier said. “We have made it far.”

 

“Nothing to get comfortable about."

 

The Major turned to Taekwoon. He said, "Jung, take an ambulance up the road. There was a hit near the front.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“I dispatched one already, but they may need help.”

 

He stopped to observe the troops before him. “Glad as hell to see you. Now get moving. We have an offensive to carry out.”

 

He left the villa and many troops followed, but Taekwoon stayed back with Jaehwan beside him.

 

He said, “Would you like me to come with you?”

 

“Why not?”

 

They moved over the embankment quickly to the vehicles and took their weapons and loaded the ambulance. Then they drove up the road. Wet leaves fell onto the windshield and would not blow away and it was too dark to see; but they drove up the road and pushed on until they came to an abandoned truck eight miles from camp. A short ways up the road they found what they had come for. Two wounded lay on the road as the driver loaded up the back of the ambulance. He took three wounded and told Taekwoon that he did not need help.

 

“But there are civilians,” he said. “Up there, on the road.”

 

“What am I to do with civilians? I am not here for the civilians.”

 

“You must do something. We cannot leave them.”

 

“The hell we can’t, man. Do you want to bring civilians into camp? Do you want them to stay in the villa with the Sergeant Major? It is up to you. You take them, but I will not.”

 

Jaehwan unloaded a stretcher. Together they raised one wounded from the road onto the stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance.

 

“No!” said the driver. “Bring him into my ambulance. There is room. Then you take my ambulance back to camp and I will get the civilians.”

 

“ _Tu_?”

 

“ _Si_. I will drive them to Portogruaro.”

 

“You’re an idiot,” Jaehwan said. “The Major won’t have it.”

 

“Has he said as much?”

 

“No. But you know his temperament. It’s the middle of the night. We’re due for an offensive. And you want to go through the hills where the Germans are? Because of civilians? Sounds a little peculiar, doesn’t it?”

 

“Go with him,” Taekwoon instructed. “Make sure he does not wander off. But you cannot take them to Portogruaro, it’s too far. You find somewhere closer where they can stay and you leave them there.”

 

“Udine?” the driver said.

 

“Idiot. Udine is too close to the front. It has been evacuated, surely.”

 

Jaehwan balked hesitantly. “You’re joking that I go with. Tell me you are joking.”

 

“Go on.”

 

Jaehwan sighed deeply with dissatisfaction, but went with the unnamed soldier at once. It was as they left that Taekwoon lifted the last wounded onto a stretcher and loaded him into the first ambulance. Then he drove back to camp with a car full of the nearly dead. He did not think of the dead that lay unattended in the brush nor of the enemy that lay hidden in the dark. He thought of nothing, but felt very empty all the time that he drove.

 

At camp, he was approached by First Lieutenant Lucci who was a man with a gentle demeanor, approachable by nearly anyone. But to be approached by him was not something Taekwoon thought lightly of. He gave his hand and followed the lieutenant into a large tent lighted by lanterns where wine was poured and the offensive discussed.

 

Lucci said, “It’s nice to have you back with us. Did you enjoy your leave?”

 

“Yes, _tenente_.”

 

“Rested well?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Feeling better?”

 

“Sir?”

 

“All right. Chatter aside. Let us discuss the morning. We will be leaving before dawn. How long does that give us?”

 

“About three hours.”

 

“All right.  Three hours. You know what is to be done? You will take a small group to the outer mountains, closer to the border. Have you decided who you will take with you?”

 

“Lee, Carelli. Palo if he has not been assigned another group.”

 

“No assignments yet. You can have Palo.”

 

“All right, then, Palo. He’s a good shooter and I quite like him. Easy to get along with, doesn’t talk very much.”

 

Lucci nodded. “Listens well, too. Good choice.” He addressed the map on the table between them. “So you take this route, through the mountains. Two other groups will leave after you. One before you. Only difference is Udine. You are the only group going through Udine. Then, we all meet at the camp we set up near Tarvisio.”

 

“Tarvisio is awfully close to Austria.”

 

“Yes. That is the point.”

 

“We have taken Tarvisio already?”

 

“Setting up camp as we speak. Take your wine. It will take the edge off, give you time to sleep before we leave.”

 

Taekwoon took the wine.

 

Lucci continued. “We will reach Tarvisio and by then the camp will have been set up. New base. Nearer the front. Able to win the war that way. Closer to Austria, closer to home, they will come from the mountains quickly that way and,” he motioned with his arms as if to say _that is all. That will be the end of it_. “We will shoot them dead.”

 

Lucci poured the wine. He said, “Do you think the war will end this year?”

 

“They say it will.”

 

“Every year they say this.”

 

“It cannot hurt to be optimistic, _tenente_. Perhaps this year they will be right.”

 

“Let’s hope so.”

 

They drank the wine and Taekwoon was dismissed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That morning, an hour before dawn, Taekwoon lay in a cot he would use only once. He struggled to sleep, for his heart was empty and he felt very strange. He could not remember the joy he had felt in Napoli, though he badly wanted to. Once again, he was a man at war; he was a soldier. No sooner could he recall the carefree moments beside the sea than he could recall the way he felt one year in the past. However, if he was to lie with his eyes closed, he could remember how soft Hongbin had been. He thought of that softness and of his singing. He thought of the cobbled roads that led to nowhere and heaved a great sigh as his heart filled to bursting. Why did hours feel like years and years like lifetimes? Perhaps, that was all it had been. A lifetime in the meadows. He had spent many lifetimes there. And now and now? Had it all come to an end as suddenly as he felt it had?

 

“Taekwoon.”

 

Taekwoon blinked open his eyes. “Yes.”

 

Carelli stood before him. He was agitated. His dark hair lay flat against his forehead and he was very sweaty. “Were you asleep?”

 

“No. What is it?”

 

“Oh, nothing, really.”

 

“Nervous?”

 

“Never nervous.” He came into the tent. “But I do feel a little strange. Do you feel it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It’s right here, right in the heart.” He touched his chest with the flat of one palm. “It strikes like a pain. What is it? Is it fear?”

 

“Not fear.”

 

“What is it, then?” But Taekwoon did not have an answer. _What is it_ , Carelli said again, quietly, to no one.

 

“Faust,” Taekwoon said, for this was Carelli’s given name, “come sit with me. Tell me about Roma.”

 

“Well, all right. If you really want to know. You do want to know, don’t you, Jung? You aren’t only asking to be nice?”

 

“No.” Taekwoon sat up and moved over to give Carelli room to join him. “Now, tell me. I didn’t stay in Roma very long.”

 

“You’re lucky, really. It was awful. Everyone was so depressed, they made me feel depressed simply being around them.”

 

Italian spoken by true Italians comes quickly like a stream and for Taekwoon who could not seem to shake the omnipresence of sleep, it came much faster. He struggled to understand.

 

Carelli took Taekwoon’s odd expression as disbelief.

 

“ _Sono onesto_ ,” Carelli said. “I wanted to leave right away. I’m telling you, man, I wanted to leave right then. _Molto brutto_. But I was there already and I did not think I would find anything better anywhere else. There was nothing to do but to drink and to sleep and to drink more so you could sleep more and then, in the night, you could hear the fighting very far away and see the light from the fires and hear the aeroplanes close enough to sound like the world ender.”

 

Taekwoon rubbed at his face. He jarred himself further awake. “There’s a bottle of rum in my rucksack. Grab it and have a drink, then give it here.”

 

Carelli did as he was told.

 

“You should have gone south,” Taekwoon said. He drank from the bottle. “They’re optimistic there. They have a good time.”

 

“Napoli was nice?”

 

“Lovely. Made it difficult to come back.”

 

“Maybe you’ll move there when the war ends.”

 

“Oh, I don’t know.” Taekwoon took another drink, then gave the bottle to Carelli. “Put it back when you’re done with it. I’ll rest now. Find Lee for me and tell him to get his things together.”

 

“All right.” Carelli rose. “I’ll wake you before sunrise.”

 

Taekwoon fell quickly asleep. He slept deeply through the time he was permitted and woke with a pounding in his head. He dressed and with Jaehwan and Carelli and Palo together, they left camp and followed the outer trail through the mountains. They were to go through the mountains until Tarvisio, but because Udine was a short day’s walk away, they would go until Udine and from Udine they would take two ambulances up to Tarvisio. Each man was rested and felt very at ease. It was the promise of walking for a single day, then driving the rest of the way that made it easier to get started.

 

For a time, they did not speak. Across the fields that wound like streams and were deep with the water of the rains, fruit trees shed their color. There was no sound but the sound of their walking.

 

“I have not dealt with rain like the rain of Italy,” said Jaehwan.

 

“It rains all over the world,” said Carelli.

 

“But not like Italy. I cannot think of a place where it rains more than it rains in Italy.”

 

“London.”

 

“I have not been to London.”

 

“Paris.”

 

“I have not been to Paris.”

 

“You have been to Paris,” Taekwoon said.

 

“Only once and not even for a day. It doesn’t count. Besides, I did not see the rain.”

 

“You’re a bore.”

 

“Go to hell, Palo. I wasn’t talking to you.”

 

As the highest rank, Taekwoon walked at the front of the group, and smiled all the time as the others bickered. He prodded lightly, “Do not mock our youngest.”

 

“Me? Are you speaking to me?”

 

“Yes, Lee, I am speaking to you.”

 

“You can go to hell, too.”

 

“Such a sensitive man. Palo—! Do you think Jaehwan is sensitive?”

 

“Absolutely, sir.”

 

Taekwoon grinned broadly over his shoulder. Jaehwan would not look at him. “Tell me, where did you take your leave, Palo? Milano?”

 

“No, sir.”

 

“Roma?”

 

“He did not take leave,” said Carelli.

 

“Why not?”

 

“The British said the war would end this year. I didn’t think I ought to take leave if the war would come to an end.”

 

Carelli brightened with laughter. “That is no reason to stay! You wanted to say you won the war, didn’t you, Rinin? Took on all of Austria alone.”

 

“You’re being an ass.”

 

“It’s true,” Taekwoon said. “You’re being an ass.”

 

“ _Au contraire_ . Is that what the French say? _Au contraire_. There are things to be learned about the British. If I believed everything the British said about this war, maybe I would have given up my leave too. But, the difference is, Rinin, I do not believe the fucking British.”

 

“The British are not bad,” Palo said miserably.

 

“No, they are not bad. But they are not right either. Never right. Maybe they were right once.”

 

“When?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know. When, Jaehwan? When were the British right?”

 

“Never.”

 

They came up over the side of the mountain and passed under the trees where leaves stuck to the bottom of their wet boots; they could hear the coming of the trucks, far off on the trails. It was stupid to have brought the trucks through. Taekwoon led them quietly away from the roads until they could not hear the trucks anymore. It was then he felt safer. And what a wonder it was to feel safe in those hills.

 

“Why did _tenente_ not bring the horses?” Carelli called. “Why all the trucks? The noise is shameful.”

 

“There aren’t any horses to spare. They are all in Udine.”

 

“The hell with Udine. We should not go to Udine.”

 

“Do you know something I don’t?”

 

“No,” Carelli said. “Call it a gut feeling. Udine is shit. It’s gone to hell. I guarantee you. The last time I was there was before our leave and it was shit then. It will be more shit now.”

 

“We must go for the ambulance. They do not have ambulances in Tarvisio and they do not have horses in Gorizia.” Taekwoon said.

 

“You think I don’t know? Oh, but us meeting in Tarvisio. . . how stupid it all is. We have not taken Tarvisio. There is no way.”

 

Palo spoke briefly, very softly, like he did not want to speak, but felt he must. “What do you mean? How do you know this?”

 

“Think about it. If we had taken all of Tarvisio, there would be a lot more than our army here. We would have the French and the British here. All of the goddamn United Kingdom on its way. But we have only ourselves and we are spread up in these mountains like guerrillas.”

 

“Faust.” Taekwoon implicated warning and the four men continued north to Udine in silence.

 

They walked all the morning and into the afternoon and came to the top of a very tall hill and from there, they could see the town. It was a dead town. From away they could see it lay open like a casket, usurped by the Austrians in the nighttime.

 

“Jesus,” someone said.

 

Taekwoon felt ill from hunger and from the sun and to see the town made him feel worse. He went down the side of the hill to the sparse shade of an apricot tree and stood there, trying to think. It was not long before he was joined.

 

He pointed to Carelli before Carelli could speak. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say right now.” Then he took his rifle from his shoulder and lay it against the tree. He lighted a cigarette and sat in the shade.

 

“You have another?” Carelli asked.

 

Taekwoon gave him the cigarette box and was happy Carelli did not speak more. They smoked in the humidity and the silence as Jaehwan, who did not want to smoke, watched the sky.

 

He said, “It will rain again,” but no one paid him any attention.

 

Taekwoon could not think properly. He knew they were to complete their route to Tarvisio, but could not be sure there would be an ambulance left in Udine. If it had been a raid in the night, there would not be a medic to give him the keys.

 

“You can hotwire, can’t you?” he asked Carelli who responded with a nod. “So if there is an ambulance there, you can get it to start if we cannot get the keys?”

 

“Sure.”

 

But what of Tarvisio? No one dared ask aloud.

 

“ _Christ—_!” It was Jaehwan who spoke and he spoke with a hissing anger as if the word had burbled up out of him with force. He dropped to the ground and dragged Carelli with him. He whispered for Palo to get down. But he did not have to speak to Taekwoon, for Taekwoon had seen before him the rows of soldiers in the town. They came out of the town in two lines with their rifles rested on their shoulders. They were Austrian. One could tell by the shape of the helmet.

 

The cigarettes were snubbed out. Taekwoon lay on the ground with a man on either side of him and his rifle rested on the ground, aimed to Udine. The amount of soldiers in the town was not an amount that could appear overnight. It was obvious they had been there all the time.

 

“May I speak now?” Carelli asked.

 

“No. I never want to hear you speak again.” Taekwoon looked away from Udine and to the west where the mountains were not as tall as the ones to the east. They did not provide the same coverage, but if they were to get around Udine, it would be through the west. He said so aloud.

 

“It will take longer to reach Tarvisio, but safer.”

 

“How much longer?” Jaehwan said.

 

“I don’t know,” Taekwoon said. “Maybe another day. If we don’t get caught, another day.”

 

“Are there enough provisions?”

 

“Yes. Do you all feel fine?”

 

They agreed they felt fine.

 

“We go west from here and after we are far enough west, we will stop overnight and have something to eat.”

 

“I wish we had come sooner,” Palo said, walking west.

 

“We would have had to get here a hell of a lot sooner than now. Not even just one day. Maybe a whole month sooner.”

 

“Yes,” Palo said. “I know you are right, but I was looking forward to the ambulances.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was because of the rain that the light of the sun died quickly that night. Taekwoon thought of what Jaehwan had said and thought him very right. He could not remember a time he had seen such rain as the rain of Italy and deeply wished it away. The roads at the end of the mountains were muddy and hard to wade through and the towns they passed stood as dead as Udine. It was not until night came and the first of the hunger pains began to strike like a blow to the head that Taekwoon accepted they would not make it much farther in the night.

 

“There is a cowshed, about two kilometers east,” Carelli said. “Perhaps a little less. I saw it in passing.”

 

Jaehwan said, “Do we want to go back the way we came?”

 

Taekwoon sighed and closed his eyes. He was tired. His men were tired. He could feel the tiredness fall over them like soot. “No. We’ll go forward. We passed a town, there will be another town.”

 

They came down out of the mountains under the cover of night and took to the roads and then into the brush and walked beneath the bare trees with the sky between the branches, grey as something dead, and passed along the railroads. The railroad had been blown up along the tracks and debris and metal stretched upward as hands coming out of the earth and the men walked over them as if not seeing them. They followed the night and the silence and did not speak, for hunger and sleep was all each man could think of, and they did not care for the skyline that stood on fire from the fighting.

 

“Sir,” Palo called out. “There is a farmhouse. There,” he pointed between the trees and Taekwoon could see the roof of the farmhouse through the branches. It was not far.

 

Once at the farmhouse, they climbed up a sturdy ladder to the rafters of the house and pulled the ladder up beside them on the landing and it was there they ate and drank and did not speak until they had all ate. They finished the rum and the cigarette box was passed between them.

 

Palo, who did not smoke, declined the cigarette.

 

“Why do you not smoke, Rinin?” Jaehwan asked. He lay with his head on a stack of hay. “You’re the only man I know not to smoke cigarettes.”

 

“I don’t mind pipe tobacco, but cigarettes have a strange taste.”

 

Carelli thumbed his nose.

 

“Go to hell, Faust,” Palo said, getting sore.

 

“Don’t get sore,” Carelli laughed. “I was only kidding you. Come on, Rinin, don’t get sore.” He pulled Palo to sit beside him and sat with his arm around his shoulders, smiling all the time. “If you don’t like cigarettes, I don’t give a damn.”

 

Taekwoon paid their antics very little mind. He sat in the rafters, looking out of a hole in the roof where the roof had been stripped away and where the sky peered in like an all-seeing eye. He watched the sky and the stars and thought of the sea. He would not allow himself to think of Hongbin so thought of the sea and the boats and of the city he had left behind. He felt very unhappy.

 

“What about you, sir?” It was Palo who spoke and Palo who looked up at Taekwoon eagerly. “Are you married, sir?”

 

“No.”

 

“Carelli is married. Did you hear?”

 

Taekwoon looked over the three men on the landing. Then he looked back at the sky. “I would think a man who is married ought to be home with his wife, not out fighting a war.”

 

“I am fighting for her freedom.”

 

“Do you have children?”

 

“One. A little one. Turned three last month.”

 

Taekwoon lighted a new cigarette. “You should be home then. Why don’t you go home?”

 

“If I could now, I would.” Carelli laughed and was joined by Jaehwan who lay with his arm over his eyes as if to sleep. “Wouldn’t you, Jung?”

 

“Yes. We all would.”

 

“Not me,” Palo said.

 

“That’s right. You haven’t been here long.”

 

“Since the spring, sir.”

 

Taekwoon went away from the rafters and lay down beside Jaehwan. It was then he covered his face and tried to sleep, but the dark brought the night and the music and the cobbled roads. It brought Hongbin, bright as any star, behind the fluttery blackness of his dreams. He could not sleep and so drank the rum until sleep pressed down on him heavy as the night, but the rum did not take away the dreams. He dreamt of Hongbin. He dreamt of his face against Hongbin’s face and of Hongbin leaning over him with his mouth against his skin. He came in the night as he had never come before and came vivid as the morning sky, phosphorescent and beautiful, like something long forgotten unearthed again.

 

We should have gotten out when we could, Hongbin said. We could have left and never come back. Would that have made you happy, _amore_?

 

But it was a cowardly thing to do. I cannot be cowardly before death. You understand, don’t you? Don’t you. You must understand. He reached out in his dream and thus reached out in reality and woke with a start as his hand brushed the dry hay beneath his head. Taekwoon dropped his head against the ground.

 

“You were speaking.”

 

“Why are you awake?”

 

Jaehwan looked across the dark from his place in the rafters. “Wanted a smoke. It’s almost dawn. You ought to go back to sleep.”

 

“What was I saying?”

 

“I couldn’t hear it well, but you spoke Korean. Who the hell do you speak Korean to besides me?” He smiled in the dark. “Or were you dreaming of me?”

 

“Go to hell.” Taekwoon rolled over and tried to sleep again, but he could not fall into a deep sleep. So he lay on the ground in a trance and did not move until he felt the warmth of the rising sun. He let the warmth wash over him and rouse him and then he sat up in the rafters and woke the others.

 

They ate together in the rafters, watching the fields and the meadows and all the dying of the trees through the stripped roof, then crawled down from the landing and crossed through the fields to the west. They were slow to wake and so talking ceased for most of the morning until they came across a line of abandoned trucks within the trees. There was no soldiers in sight.

 

“Are they ours?” asked Carelli.

 

“Looks that way,” said Jaehwan.

 

They went down the road into town and passed the abandoned villas. Taekwoon thought of the civilians that had lived in the houses and felt a hatred for the Austrians. But once the hatred had passed, he felt only ashamed.

 

“I think it is funny you joined this army,” said Carelli. It was not clear whom he spoke to, but it was Palo who joined him.

 

“ _Anch’io_.” He spoke to Taekwoon, “Have you always wanted to fight in the army, sir?”

 

“No. I had not thought of it before the war began.”

 

“Me either,” Jaehwan included. “I thought nothing of fighting. I never wanted to fight. Our country does not fight.”

 

“Not yet,” Carelli said. “All countries fight sometime. That is what I have learned from the war. Italy would not fight, but alas. . . _dai un’occhiata a questo._ Look at this now. We are in the war.”

 

“Let’s talk of something else,” said Jaehwan. “I am tired of talking like this all the time. Tell me, Faust, when did you marry your sweetheart?”

 

“When I became a man. I did not want to lose her to another, so I married her right away and we spent three years together before I left.”

 

“You don’t strike me as a romantic.”

 

“I’m not. But I love her.”

 

Taekwoon smiled from where he listened at the front of the group.

 

“ _E tu_ , Lee?” Palo said. “You are not married?”

 

“No. Don’t believe in it.”

 

“How can you not believe in the holy matrimony between man and woman?”

 

“I think you are mistaking me for Taekwoon now.” They all laughed except for Palo. “I don’t give a damn about man and woman. But it is Taekwoon who is against it.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Carelli sighed. “He’s that way, you know?” When Palo did not speak, Carelli made a motion with his hands.

 

“Oh?”

 

Taekwoon felt Palo staring hard at the back of his head. He looked over one shoulder. “You really didn’t know?”

 

“No, sir. Is that why you aren’t married?”

 

“I will be married after this mess. When I go back home, I will marry.”

 

“So you are in love?”

 

“He fell in love in Napoli,” said Jaehwan, “by the sea.”

 

“I see,” Carelli said. “I understand now. I could see it in your face when you returned from your leave. I thought, maybe, you missed your country, but that is not it, is it? You are missing _il tuo cuore_. It is hard when a man misses his heart.”

 

Taekwoon stopped suddenly and placed a finger to his mouth. “Do you hear that?” They listened. “It sounds like gunfire.”

 

“From far away,” said Palo. “There is something else.”

 

It was the sound of a river to the east. The fruit trees had dispersed and left the men in the open meadow surrounded by the sky and the land. One could see, slightly out of sight, the water of the river rushing up to meet the land. What had once been a dry riverbed now overflowed greatly with the rains.

 

“Can any of you see if there is a bridge over the water?”

 

“We are too far to be sure, but I think so, yes.”

 

“If there is, it could be wired.” Taekwoon listened for the gunfire, but could not hear it well anymore. “We ought to cross the bridge. It will be wired for the weight of passing trucks, not of single men.”

 

They walked beside the river that ran to the north with rushing water that burst up over the riverbank as if it was alive, spitting fire all along the muddy banks. It was impossible to hear over the water and so Taekwoon spoke with his head bowed between them all, shouting carefully at the side of the bridge.

 

He said, “I will pass first, then Faust, then Lee. I want you, Palo, to bring up the rear. And all the time you keep your eye that way,” he pointed west. “The gunfire came from the west. You keep your eye that way until you pass the bridge. On the other side, we will keep east until Tarvisio.”

 

Palo gave sign that he understood.

 

Taekwoon started across the bridge. He could not see if there was a trip wire or an explosive, for the river ran high and he waded the water as if wading a marsh with solid ground. He felt the chill of the water and did not feel the panic inside him but knew it was there by the way his hands shook. He thought it would not be so bad to die on the bridge. If he was to die, then to die suddenly would not be bad. But that was no way for a soldier to think. He cursed himself and looked across the meadow to the mountains and saw the rain was coming steadily again. It would flood the fields and the river would rise very quickly. It would be worse to drown than to die on the bridge.

 

He reached the end of the bridge and waved for Carelli to begin crossing.

 

He came gradually, then suddenly, as if being on the bridge brought him great harm. He blushed shamelessly when he reached Taekwoon’s side. “The river is unsettling.”

 

Jaehwan began to cross. It was when he reached halfway across the bridge that he cursed loudly, able to be heard over the roaring of the water. He dropped quickly onto the bridge with his rifle positioned. Taekwoon dropped onto the ground. Carelli was short to follow and it was because of this that he was shot through the back. A burst of gore like shrapnel came from the center of his chest. There was enough time to register the pain and then he fell and lay quiet.

 

A truck came up over the hillside, driven by a German soldier. He was alongside two Austrian officers. They came quickly over the hillside with automatic weapons that fired rapidly, digging holes into the earth. Taekwoon felt a sting in his hand and knew he had been grazed. He felt a pain in his arm and thought, perhaps, he had been shot. Then he shot the truck and flattened one tire. Palo came over the bridge and fired. He shot one of the Austrian officers.

 

“We can’t take them,” Taekwoon shouted. “They are coming too fast and they will kill us.” He crawled close to Carelli and touched his neck to find the pulse, but he did not find one.

 

He called to the others, “ _Vieni qui!_ ”

 

Jaehwan crawled across the ground to Taekwoon’s side. Then came Palo. Taekwoon fired a last shot to the driver. He saw he had hit him, but had not wounded him badly. It was then Taekwoon shouldered his weapon and grabbed each man by the arm and pulled them into the river.

 

**VIII.**

There is no fear quite like the fear of drowning. It is the forcing of oneself to keep calm as they are held beneath the water, moving along a current that is swift and endless. It is impossible to know how long one is under the water when they are not able to breach the surface. It was that fear Taekwoon felt in the river. He thrust his head above the water in a gasping breath and was met by gunfire. He went under again.

 

He did not know where the others had gone. There was only the rushing of the current and the coolness of the water all around him. He was pulled by the weight of his rucksack at a quickened pace that did not let up until a pain sparked up from his right leg as he was struck by something large and jagged within the riverbed. It was obvious at once that the bone had been broken. Then he struck a similar hardness and thought it might have been a rock. The pain stopped immediately as the bone moved inside his leg and cut the nerve. Taekwoon stayed under all the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was Palo who pulled Taekwoon from the river. His head throbbed from the cold and the water; he felt ill as he choked water out of his chest. Then he lay on the muddy embankment with the useless leg left in the water, floating at the top of the frothing current. A pain in his pelvis kept him from sitting up and he knew he could not go any further. Out in the meadow, Jaehwan lay flat and gasping.

 

Taekwoon turned to Palo and said, “You will have to leave me.”

 

“What do you mean?” He examined Taekwoon carefully. “Are you hurt?” He removed Taekwoon’s boot and rolled up the leg of his trousers. He saw clearly the bone in Taekwoon’s leg had snapped in half below the knee. The pointed edge of the bone pressed beneath the skin.

 

“There is something here.” Taekwoon pressed a hand to his pelvis. “A bad pain.”

 

“Let me check.”

 

“No.”

 

“Let me check. It’s only me.”

 

Palo opened Taekwoon’s trousers and touched the area where the pain was said to be. He examined closely and decided it was only bruising. It was not serious.

 

“I feel nothing in my leg.”

 

“You’re damned lucky for that. The pain would be extraordinary.”

 

Taekwoon made to move and the bone within his leg moved with him. It was a wonder it had not broken all the way through.

 

“You will have to leave me,” he said again.

 

“I will carry you.”

 

“There's no way. You can’t carry me and expect to fight as well.”

 

“We have Jaehwan. He can fight.”

 

“Not for the three of us.”

 

Jaehwan came from the meadow and stood beside the river. He looked at Taekwoon’s leg, then looked away. He said nothing at first.

 

“You will leave me here,” Taekwoon ordered. “You will go to Tarvisio. It is, maybe, a day and a half from here. You keep to the east and you will be all right.”

 

“The hell I’m leaving you here.” Jaehwan glared at the sky where the sun glared in return. He would not look again at Taekwoon’s leg.

 

“You have waterlogged weapons and three rucksacks. You can’t take me.”

 

“There will be a town. We've passed many already. There's bound to be somewhere to go and maybe there will be an ambulance to take.”

 

“There will be no one to give you the keys. Faust is no longer here; neither of you can operate a vehicle without keys.”

 

“Oh, Christ.” Palo touched his face with both hands. “I have thought nothing of Carelli. Not a single thought. Christ.”

 

“There is no use in thinking of him now,” Jaehwan said. The situation had made him irritable. He snapped when he spoke, but would not make eye contact. “We will go to a town and find a car.”

 

“You’ll waste time this way. There are Germans in these fucking mountains, you saw them yourself.”

 

“He had children,” Palo said miserably. “He had a child.”

 

“Shut up about Carelli.”

 

“Don’t you care that he had a child?”

 

“There is nothing to care about now. Shut up about him.” Jaehwan crouched beside the river and touched Taekwoon on the arm. “I don’t care what you tell me. I care nothing at all for the garbage that comes out of your mouth. Because of this, I will find a truck and come back to you.”

 

“You’ve always been a lousy soldier.”

 

“Yes, I know it.” He did not smile. “If the Germans come, you ought to go back into the river. It is better you drown than be captured.”

 

The sentiment was there. It was very heavy between the three of them as Jaehwan righted himself. He did not say good-by; he shouldered his weapon as Palo stood over Taekwoon.

 

He said, “We’ll be back, sir. We won’t take long.”

 

“I don’t want to see you back here. I want you to go on to Tarvisio.”

 

“We’ll be back,” he said again. “Please try and keep out of sight.”

 

“Will you listen to me?”

 

Palo said nothing more.

 

“Do not come back for me!”

 

He watched them go out of sight. Then he was left alone, dripping, feeling cold from the river with a strange pain easing into him. It was not a pain from the leg, but from the pelvis that made up for the pain he could not feel elsewhere. It was strong and he did not think it could be from bruising.

 

He lay on the embankment for a long time. He was angry with himself. He thought of Carelli and became angrier. Then the anger went away and he was left feeling sad and very alone. He would not think of Carelli’s child as Palo had, nor of his wife, nor of anything that he could not change now. For a long time, he thought of absolutely nothing, for there was nothing left inside of him that felt very alive. He dragged himself to his rucksack that lay awkwardly in the field and took out the bottle of rum. He drank and felt worse. So he drank more until he felt fine and then he lay with his head on the rucksack and watched the dark cloud gather in the sky.

 

He shivered and thought will I get out of this? Oh, God, oh, God—let me get out of this. He looked to his leg and felt an uprising inside of him and knew that he would die by that river. And how much it hurt to know all the fault in the world could not be pushed onto one thing, for it had only been rotten luck that placed him there.

 

He waited for the rain to come, but it did not come that night.

 

What he thought as bad in the daytime was worse in the night when the pain of his body mixed with a new pain in his head. It had been so long since he was last truly drunk that he did not know he was drunk that night until he had emptied the bottle of rum. He closed his eyes and the ground went out from under him. The world spun like a bad dream and sleep did not, would not, come for him. There was not a fixed point he could focus on to bring himself out of the drunken state and thus found himself thinking of Hongbin. He thought of the Germans that had killed Carelli. There was a war in his head and in his belly; he fought off drunkenness with sadness and lost either way.

 

If I am seen to-night. . . if a German comes across me, I will kill myself before I kill him, because I cannot make a shot from a distance. He took his rifle and placed the muzzle over his heart. It was very simple. He set the gun aside. Is there nobility in suicide? Oh, I care no more for nobility than anything else. I care for nothing. But Hongbin, he said. Have you so quickly forgotten him?

 

Taekwoon sat up through the pain. He held the bad leg between his hands and moved the bone with his hands. It shifted and pinched something inside him that he felt at once. It was not a striking pain, but to feel something after a long time of not feeling anything startled him.

 

Oh, to see Hongbin. . . to see him once, only once. I’m sorry, he thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taekwoon slept on the rucksack with his rifle beside him, cradled like an infant to his chest. He woke before dawn to find the ache in his pelvis had subsided greatly. He was able to sit upright for a period of time with his back to the water, watching the hills rise up to the dusty blue of dawn. It was still the Italian sky above him, lighted by the sun, and to the north was the Austrian sky, lighted by the sun, and somewhere in the world that felt very far indeed, was the Mediterranean sky; Hongbin was somewhere between it all.

 

I cannot kill myself, Taekwoon thought. He lay back on the earth. But how I wish to, how I wish to, it is better than waiting. Dying was such a pitiful act. Taekwoon hated it more than anything in the world. To die suddenly was how it was meant to happen, but he was forced into a cruel, slow death that was not painful to the body, but painful to the head. He had health in him still and a man who awaited him, somewhere, across those northern skies. He waited for a hand he would never now have; and all the time Taekwoon was forced to think of it all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the second night Taekwoon knew the others would not return. He felt neither relieved nor angered. He felt nothing at all.

 

He lay in the night and awaited death. He wished it to come quickly. He thought, perhaps, if he was lucky a German soldier would find him now. They would come across him and think him dead and thus come closely to where he lay and they would see that he was very alive. Then they would shoot him. It would not do them any good to take him hostage, for he was half dead already, with a bad leg and a bad fever and the coldness of autumn rotting his bones.

 

In the night, all he could do was dream, so he dreamed, and Hongbin came to him. He knew it was a dream, but did not care, so he let himself fall deeply into sleep and he dreamed of Hongbin’s hand in his hand and Hongbin’s body to his body. He thought he heard the beating of Hongbin’s heart, but knew it could only be his own heart, soaring, soaring, up and up, far away, somewhere, he could not reach. But he tried, very hard, and he said in his head, in his dream, out loud to the sky, do not leave me.

 

You’re silly, Hongbin said. I will never leave you.

 

Are you here with me?

 

Of course, _amore_ , I never went away. Why are you crying? You do not need to cry, I am here, I am here.

 

Taekwoon could not dream any longer and so wept instead as the beating of his heart broke him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A mist fell over the mountains and high above, in the top of the chestnut trees, a cold wind blew. Taekwoon slept an agitated sleep in the half delusions of dreams, hidden away in the tall grass of the fields running aside the river. He slept with his head on the rucksack and his rifle in his hands. He burned with fever. It was because of the fever that sleep fell heavily upon him, so that it was like drowning. He was very aware of the dying of the river. Its deafening currents lessened to a gentle ripple quiet as the dawn. He could hear above the river and heard, very clearly, the approaching of men.

 

Above them, the sky opened up so that the orange light of the sun fell over the men and over Taekwoon with their shadows heavy on top of him. For a long time, the only sound was the sound of a faint discussion above him; it was not a language Taekwoon understood right away. It was not until he was able to decipher a few words that he decided it must be French. That was all the sound there was until the barrel of a rifle was pressed against the earth and the trigger pulled. Then came the deafening explosion aside Taekwoon’s ear. He jumped and his head felt very full and heavy. Blood came from his ear and he could not hear the soldiers when they demanded his name.

 

The ringing went away and Taekwoon’s head became suddenly light. He blinked up through the light of the sun and looked hard into the face of the man who had fired the rifle.

 

The man demanded something of him.

 

“I cannot understand,” Taekwoon said hoarsely. “I don’t speak _francese_.”

 

The soldiers spoke to one another in rapid French, then came to an unspoken agreement. The one that had fired the gun spoke to Taekwoon in halted Italian. “What is your name?”

 

Taekwoon told him.

 

“Who is your commanding officer?”

 

Taekwoon told him.

 

“You are part of the Italian army?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“But you are not Italian. How am I to believe you?”

 

“You may ask major Romano.”

 

“How am I to do that?”

 

“He is in Tarvisio. With the others.”

 

“You are saying I must take you to Tarvisio?”

 

Taekwoon did not respond.

 

The soldiers pulled away and spoke together for a long time. The one with the gun lighted a cigarette then shouldered the rifle. This came as a great relief.

 

“It will be very bad for you if you turn out to be lying,” said the one soldier. “You know it?”

 

“I know it,” Taekwoon said.

 

“Then we will take you to Tarvisio. You know why I do this?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because you do not look German.”

 

The two soldiers had a good laugh at that.

 

They had come in a camion. It was very uncomfortable in the back of the camion with the bad leg, but Taekwoon did not mention it. He watched the country pass as they drove through the muddy roads and all along the riverside. They passed abandoned trucks beside the river where no soldiers were seen; then they passed on the outside of Udine into Tarvisio. It was a very long drive in the back of the camion. When they finally came into Tarvisio, the sun had fallen behind clouds and the mist had returned. It soothed Taekwoon’s fever.

 

It was after Taekwoon had been unloaded from the truck and put on a stretcher that the soldier with the gun left and then returned a short time later. He stood beside Taekwoon and smiled.

 

“I nearly killed you,” he said. “That would have been awful for you.” He smiled all the time. It was something Taekwoon had to laugh at, for he could not face the reality that death had come for him twice.

 

“They will take you to the field hospital,” he said. “Does your leg hurt very much?”

 

“Not much.”

 

He touched Taekwoon’s shoulder. Then he was called away and left Taekwoon aided by two soldiers he did not know. From there he was put into the ambulance and taken to the field hospital. It was far from Tarvisio, on the other side of Udine, south of the camp they had come through the first day. Taekwoon could not watch the country from the back of the ambulance and so slept with his head very full. He dreamt of strange nonsensical things and could not remember any of them upon waking, but there was a burden inside him when he came to, as if someone had reached into his chest and emptied him.

 

Once at the hospital he was put into bed and sedated heavily and from there, he slept again. It was late in the night when he woke and found himself alone in the room with the sheets pulled up to his chest and his arms rigid at his sides as if he had been dead all the time. The pain in his pelvis had gone. He sat up and watched the moon through the open window and felt very alone. It was a different loneliness than he had felt in the fields. It was a strange, dark loneliness he could not remember having felt before. It struck him as particularly unusual.

 

“It’s only the sedatives,” the nurse told him when he asked. She was a fine English girl by the name of Miss Nolan. She had been sent to look after him. Because she had not had many soldiers in the field hospital aside from one other man, Taekwoon was her only responsibility.

 

“Do you know the name of the other soldier here?” he asked her.

 

“Are you looking for someone?”

 

“Jaehwan Lee. You would know him right away. He’s a foreigner, too.”

 

“Like you?”

 

“Yes, just like me.”

 

“No.” She pulled down the sheets and replaced the pillow beneath Taekwoon’s bandaged leg with a new, clean pillow. “The ambulance will come in the morning to move you to the hospital in the city. You should try and sleep some more.”

 

“I feel like I’ve slept for days. I have another name. Rinin Palo. He’s young.”

 

“I’ve heard neither name.”

 

“If they come, will you write me?”

 

“I will have them write you themselves, if they can.” She fed him a pill and closed the window against the night. Then she left him and did not return until morning when the ambulance came.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the hospital in the city, the doctor awaited Taekwoon’s arrival. He was said to be the best doctor on the front, but Taekwoon was not so sure. He was sedated very quickly so that all the air inside him was choked up with medicine and he could not make sense of the process happening to him. He knew that the leg was to be cut open and operated on that way and because he knew the doctor had opened him up he felt ill. He lay dopey on the bed and imagined a great deal of things. His head felt full of water and his body full of air. He imagined Hongbin was sat on the bed beside him. Taekwoon reached for him and took his hand.

 

He said, “I have missed you. Why did you not come sooner?”

 

“Be quiet now,” Hongbin said. “You will feel sick if you talk.”

 

Taekwoon was already sick. He fell into a deep sleep and when he woke, Hongbin had gone. It was later that the nurse on duty came to him and explained it had been her that had taken his hand.

 

“Don’t feel bad,” she said. “You said nothing incriminating.”

 

When he began to cry, she told him it was because of the morphine and to not feel bad at all. But Taekwoon knew better. His heart was all choked up and it was as if he had been opened up and refilled with lead. He could not breathe beneath the weight of his heart.

 

“Who were you thinking of?” she asked. “When you took my hand, who was it you saw?”

 

“No one.”

 

“Tell me so I can send for them.”

 

“Will they really come?”

 

“It doesn’t hurt to try.”

 

When Taekwoon gave Hongbin’s name, she wrote it down on a pad of paper then left him until the evening when she brought in his dinner. Together, they spoke of simple things. The nurse, an old Italian woman with a strong American accent, told Taekwoon of the dog races she and her husband would tend in the summer. She talked of the heat and the flowers like old friends. Her husband had died the first year of the war, driving an ambulance for the British.

 

“I’m sorry to hear such a thing,” Taekwoon said.

 

“It’s nothing to be sorry for.”

 

She inspected his leg and filled him with medications and told him he ought to sleep well because now everything was all right again. All the time she kept the paper with Hongbin’s name in the front pocket of her smock. It gave Taekwoon a wonderful feeling of comfort to know she had it.

 

Between the night nurses and the doctors and the barber that came once a week to trim his hair, Taekwoon began to feel very fine. The hospital room was a large room with tall windows that looked out onto a courtyard lively with oak trees. In the night, the window was kept open so the air of early winter could blow away the musty smell of the bedding; Taekwoon would lay up in bed and watch the moon in the dark sky, then watch the rain when it began to fall and he would think of nothing at all but the dark of the sky and the brightness of the stars and he would feel a contentment that bordered happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a rare warm November day when the doctor came and sat in a heavy chair beside Taekwoon’s bed. He took out the x-rays of the bad leg and laid them on the bed.

 

“Put them away,” Taekwoon told him. “I can’t read those things.”

 

The doctor put them away.

 

He said, “The bone will mend. All broken bones mend. There is no infection and that is well too. By the spring, you’ll be out of the hospital.”

 

“And back at the front?”

 

The doctor relapsed into thick silence. He wore small glasses that sat on the edge of his nose. He pushed the glasses up to his eyes. “You won’t fight in this war again.”

 

Taekwoon listened very well.

 

“The damage to the nerve in your leg was very hard to reverse, but I think we did well on it. It didn’t help your being out there in the cold, exposed as long as you were.” He crossed the room to an armoire where the bedding was kept. Inside was a long black cane with a hooked handle.

 

The doctor placed the cane beside the bed. “We’ll see how it will be once you’re well again, but the chances of you walking on your own are very small.”

 

He said, “But a cane is better than a chair.”

 

“I’ll never fight in any war again, will I?” Taekwoon asked.

 

“Afraid not.”

 

“And I will use a cane all my life.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Taekwoon looked to the window. He did not want to talk to the doctor any longer.

 

“There was a lot of damage to the inner part of your leg, _signore_. It was not only the bone and the nerves that suffered, but the ligaments and much of the muscle.”

 

“All right.”

 

“It’s a blessing you did not lose the whole damn leg.” The doctor laughed politely. He told Taekwoon he was very sorry he had rotten luck in the war, but that he ought to be grateful it was only the leg and nothing more.

 

“I have seen terrible things in this war,” he said.

 

Taekwoon believed him. He felt foolish for losing his head and gave the doctor a strong handshake to make up for it.

 

“You will be all right, _signore_. A cane is nothing. It will become a part of you and you will not tell the difference once you’re better. Do you feel better already?”

 

“Yes."

 

"There's that, then." The doctor placed a comforting hand on the bed. He did not touch Taekwoon; it was as if he was afraid to. "I'll be back to check on you before the winter is over."

 

He left.

 

**IX.**

In the morning, the nurse woke Taekwoon and said he would have a visitor in the afternoon. She sent for the barber and afterwards, she came to tidy the room. She checked the leg and said it looked very clean; such a clean operation deserved a drink.

 

She sat in the same chair the doctor had used and poured them each a drink from a small bottle of vermouth. She told Taekwoon not to mention the drink to the doctor, he would not approve, but because Taekwoon looked so sullen in bed, she could not stand it. After the drink, she went out, and Taekwoon slept a while.

 

He woke when he felt the bed move beneath him and when he woke, he thought himself still asleep, for Hongbin was sat on the bed beside him. He held Taekwoon’s hand cradled in his lap.

 

“ _Ciao, amore_ ,” he said.

 

Taekwoon blinked and kept his eyes closed. If he was dreaming, surely he had lost his head. Hongbin felt very real against him as he leaned over and kissed the top of Taekwoon’s head.

 

“You’re truly here, aren’t you?” Taekwoon did not open his eyes.

 

“Of course, I am. Can’t you tell?”

 

Hongbin put his arms around Taekwoon and leaned all his weight onto him. He was very small and did not weigh much, but Taekwoon felt the weight deep inside him. He put his arms around Hongbin’s body and held him tightly. A love bloomed inside Taekwoon then and he knew for certain that he was in love. He had felt it before, but knew then that it would never be lost. He was comforted by Hongbin’s whispering breath against his neck.

 

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” he said. “It feels like you’ve been gone a long time.”

 

“I have been.”

 

“Yes, you’re right.”

 

“Don’t let go now.”

 

“I couldn’t even if you wanted me to.”

 

They were careful of Taekwoon’s leg as Hongbin pulled back the bed covers and crawled beneath them, so that his body was pressed tightly into Taekwoon. They did not care if they were caught, nor if time was to slip away from them. All that mattered in that moment was that they would not be apart again.

 

“Did you think of me often?”

 

“Yes,” Taekwoon said.

 

“Is that why you're in this mess?”

 

“No, _amore_ , no.” He kissed Hongbin’s closed eyes. “It was only bad luck.”

 

Hongbin could not possibly come any closer, but he tried very hard. He wrapped his arms tightly around Taekwoon’s middle and lay his head to his shoulder. He put his leg over Taekwoon’s waist and held him that way. It seemed he could not speak.

 

The silence was a tender thing that Taekwoon would not break. He kissed Hongbin’s cheek, then kissed his forehead. He found his mouth and kissed him there. He kissed him deeply and held him down with the weight of his own body so that Hongbin was pinned gently to the bed. Taekwoon could not move well with the bandaged leg on the pillow, but was able to cant his body enough to feel Hongbin beneath him.

 

“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” Hongbin whispered.

 

“You won’t.”

 

“I will, I know it.”

 

“Don’t worry, _caro_. I’ll be fine.”

 

They were quiet in their togetherness, but a passion very near hysteria brimmed low in Taekwoon’s belly. It scalded him, burning like a pain he could not relieve. When Hongbin came close to him it was as if all the world had gone away. There was not a room around them; there was not a war very near in the north; there was only a vast, black nothingness, warm and tender like a gentle hand in the night. Then it was over. Taekwoon longed to feel it again.

 

“Tell me you love me,” Hongbin said. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard you say it.”

 

Taekwoon told him.

 

“Say it again.”

 

Taekwoon told him again.

 

“I could listen to you say it all the time.”

 

“You’re terribly wonderful.”

 

Hongbin smiled. “Don’t leave me again.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“Never leave me again.”

 

“I’ll never leave you.” Taekwoon held Hongbin’s face in his hands. “We’ll be married and I can never leave you then.”

 

“Let’s not wait. Let’s be married now.”

 

“Right now?”

 

“Yes.” Hongbin laughed. “Kiss me and then we’ll be married.”

 

Taekwoon kissed him.

 

“Do you feel different,” Hongbin asked, “now that we’re married?”

 

“I’ve never met anyone like you.”

 

“That’s good. It means you’ve never loved anyone like me either.”

 

“You’re the silliest boy I know.”

 

“Oh, don’t say _that_ ,” Hongbin laughed. He was cheerful and full of color. It was as if Taekwoon had not felt life inside him in all the time since returning to the front. But he felt it then, with Hongbin in his arms, his smile like the sun, burning too brightly to bear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had a lovely time that winter. Hongbin did not come to the room often, for the night nurse would not allow it, but when the snow began to fall and Taekwoon was able to leave the bed, they walked together in the courtyard in the early, cold of dawn. Taekwoon walked with the cane and with Hongbin’s hand in the fold of his elbow as they watched the snow fall; they talked of the future and of Paris. It was an unfathomable thing to Taekwoon, to speak of a life outside of the war, and stranger, still, that they would never be a part of it again.

 

On Christmas, a letter came from the front. It was written in Korean and written very badly, with a rushed hand and vague endearments. At the bottom, Jaehwan had not bothered to sign it. 

 

“He writes like a child,” Hongbin said when he saw the letter. “What do you think he’ll do after the war?”

 

“I haven’t the slighest.”

 

“Why don’t you write him back? Tell him something romantic.” Hongbin looked away with a dreamlike quality in his dark eyes. “Tell him, when the war ends, to meet us in Paris. He ought to come by train, so we can wait at the station all morning long. Then when he comes, you’ll be the happiest you’ve been in a long time.”

 

“That’s very romantic.”

 

“Do you think he’ll think so, too?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Tell him then! Tell him right now.”

 

**X.**

In the spring the snow began to melt and the flora came into bloom; all of the countryside was sweet with the smell of the trees. It was in the spring Taekwoon was released from the hospital and thus, honorably discharged from the army. It did not come as a great blow at first, but as he grieved silently in a cafe in Roma, he felt very badly about it all.

 

“ _Amore_.” Hongbin reached over the table and took Taekwoon’s hand. “What is it? You look terrible.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Don’t be that way.”

 

“It’s nothing.”

 

Hongbin came around the table and sat beside Taekwoon. “Won’t you tell me?”

 

“Truly, _caro_ , it is nothing. I’m feeling sentimental.”

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“No.”

 

Hongbin rest his head to Taekwoon’s shoulder and they stayed that way for a short while until the lunch hour passed. Then they paid the tab and left the cafe. They were to stay in the city for only the night. In the morning, they would go down to the station and board the train to Switzerland.

 

“Should we go home?” Hongbin asked as they passed the river.

 

“All right.”

 

“We’ll go home to the hotel and lie around and not think of anything at all. We can leave word with the concierge and order dinner up to the room and bottles of wine and drink until dawn. What do you think?”

 

“I think you’re a lovely boy.”

 

Hongbin colored with cheer and grew flustered. In the orange glow of evening light, they walked up the road to the hotel; the wind blew and smoothed the river. They were happy.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> pls feel free to come chat with me any time ~  
> i would love to hear your thoughts and any feedback ;3; *big smooches*!!  
>  
> 
> Italian to English index:  
> ❧ _amico_ ➝ **friend**  
>  ❧ _il ragazzo_ ➝ **the boy**  
>  ❧ _non lo so_ ➝ **i do not know**  
>  ❧ _[tu sei il] amore mio_ ➝ **[you are] my love**  
>  ❧ _tesoro [mio]_ ➝ **[my] darling/honey**  
>  ❧ _[tu sei il] soldato mio ➝_ **[you are] my soldier**  
> 


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